Confluence Series by Paul J. McAuley, Paul McAuley

Where all things flow together...everything comes apart.Untold millennia ago, the Preservers made the world called Confluence and peopled it with ten thousand extraordinary bloodlines "shaped" from beasts of every sort. Then the Preservers abandoned their creation - leaving behind their law, their bureaucracies...and their trillions of machines, awake or slumbering, in the soil and the water and the air... moreWhere all things flow together...everything comes apart.Untold millennia ago, the Preservers made the world called Confluence and peopled it with ten thousand extraordinary bloodlines "shaped" from beasts of every sort. Then the Preservers abandoned their creation - leaving behind their law, their bureaucracies...and their trillions of machines, awake or slumbering, in the soil and the water and the air. In the Preservers' absence war came - and a dangerous heresy arose that split the world in two.But a babe swept in on the great river, cradled in the arms of death - the last and, perhaps, greatest of a remarkable bloodline - and now the end times are at hand. And as Yama grows to young manhood, he will make his way from necropolis to metropolis - and through the labrynthine country of the mind - in search of a past and a lost destiny. Each hairbreadth escape will make Yama stronger. And every unanticipated adventure will bring him one step closer to the staggering truth about his heritage and his purpose...and about a world that is not what it appears to be. less

Time, Like A River, Must One Day Run Dry.On an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long-vanished Preservers, young Yama's ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshiped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires... moreTime, Like A River, Must One Day Run Dry.On an artificial world created and seeded with ten thousand bloodlines by the long-vanished Preservers, young Yama's ancestry is unique, for he appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the worshiped architects of Confluence. And on a day near the end of the world, Yama must finally acknowledge the power he neither anticipated nor desires.To the common folk--the unshaped and aboriginal--he is the fulfillment of age-old prophecies. To the functionaries of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, he is a weapon to be molded and used in the bloody civil war raging at the planet's midpoint. But there are still others who have taken notice of Yama as he pursues the hidden secrets of his past. Intelligent powers older than the Builders--as old, perhaps, as the Preservers themselves--are pursuing Yama in turn. And they will stop at nothing to control his present--and, as a result, the future of everything that lives. less

Hundreds of different races, created and then abandoned by the Preservers, co-exist on the artificial planet called Confluence. But the end of the world is drawing near, hastened by the terrible civil war that rages at its midpoint.Caught in the center of the strife is Yama, the last of the bloodline that constructed Confluence... moreHundreds of different races, created and then abandoned by the Preservers, co-exist on the artificial planet called Confluence. But the end of the world is drawing near, hastened by the terrible civil war that rages at its midpoint.Caught in the center of the strife is Yama, the last of the bloodline that constructed Confluence. A young man whose awakening powers have made him a weapon coveted by both sides in the brutal conflict, Yama is determined to seek out answers to the mystery of his birth -- in order to fulfill an astonishing destiny that even he cannot begin to imagine. less

Confluence - a long, narrow, artificial world, half fertile river valley, half crater-strewn desert. A world beyond the end of human history, served by countless machines, inhabited by ten thousand bloodlines who worship their absent creators, rivem by a vast war against heretics... moreConfluence - a long, narrow, artificial world, half fertile river valley, half crater-strewn desert. A world beyond the end of human history, served by countless machines, inhabited by ten thousand bloodlines who worship their absent creators, rivem by a vast war against heretics. This is the home of Yama, found as an infant in a white boat on the world's Great River, raised by an obscure bureaucrat in an obscure town in the middle of a ruined necropolis, destined to become a clerk - until the discovery of his singular ancestry. For Yama appears to be the last remaining scion of the Builders, closest of all races to the revered architects of Confluence, able to awaken and control the secret machineries of the world.Pursued by enemies who want to make use of his powers, Yama voyages down the length of the world to search for answers to the mysteries of his origin, and to discover if he is to be the saviour of his world, or its nemesis. less