Five Families. One Shattered Nation. World War III was even uglier than anyone had feared. The nuclear bombs were bad; the Chinese-engineered plagues were worse. Those who died in the Five Day War had it easy—it was the survivors who dug out of the rubble only to face starvation, chaos and bandit gangs who had to live through hell. In Texas and across the American South five extended families approach survival and rebuilding in their own way. The Newcastles, who have roots in Texas centuries deep, fall back on their history of ranching, and community leadership to organize and defend themselves and their allies. The newcomer Mackenzies use repurposed tech to organize and protect their trading convoys. The Atkinses and Hyltons, out of the Appalachians by way of Oklahoma, employ raw violence, while the Hollinses work their political wiles to help rebuild political order—hopefully better this time around. Not everyone wants America and Texas to rebuild. The allied forces of civilization must face outlaw gangs who prey on the helpless, political upstarts who want to carve new empires out of the American heartland, and well-armed cartel armies backed by the down-but-not-out Chinese. Markets, order, and safety are precious and delicate, and chaos, disorder, and militarism push in from every direction. From the space launch facilities on the Gulf coast to the oil fields of the Texas panhandle, free men fight to rebuild and reestablish civilization. Echoing the grand tradition of post-apocalypse survival sagas such as Lucifer's Hammer, The Postman, and The Road, Corcoran’s vast chronicle brings to life a broken land where hard men—and once-soft men made hard by circumstance—must doggedly battle to hold onto their dream of a nation conceived in liberty and fight to rebuild a shattered America.