Stephen Baxter

Four hostages are finally released, but they face a world suddenly inundated as vast amounts of water is released from the earth's mantle. As the world's cities and countries disappear under the rising seas, humanity faces unimaginable global disaster.

"Many generations ago, the Wall was built to hold back the sea. A simple dam, it grew into a vast linear city, home to scholars, builders, and merchants. Northland's prosperity survived wars and unrest--and brought the whole of Europe together. But now darkness is falling. Days grow shorter, temperatures colder, and in the wake of long winters come famine, destruction, and terror. As a mass exodus to warmer climes threatens to fracture Northland,...

"2040-2045: In the years after the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption there is massive economic dislocation as populations flee Datum Earth to myriad Long Earth worlds. Sally, Joshua, and Lobsang are all involved in this perilous rescue work when, out of the blue, Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father and inventor of the original Stepper device, Willis Linsay. He tells her he is planning a fantastic voyage across the Long Mars and wants her...

Lobsang's pursuit of a human life, Joshua's search for his father and the adaptation efforts of "the Next" post-humans are challenged by a voracious alien race that would conquer and colonize the Long Earth. "2045-2059. Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth, its battered and weary origin planet, as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond. Lobsang, now an elderly and complex AI, suffers a breakdown, and disguised...