The Great Rift lies between the Sagitarius and Orion arms of thegalaxy. Stars are scarce there, beyond the authority of theFederation, and legends abound of lost civilizations and ofancient monsters that prey on those who dare to venture into thevast darkness between the stars.

When several ships and colonies mysteriously disappear into theRift, the U.S.S. Enterprise leads an expedition toinvestigate various disturbing reports. Accompanied by two otherFederation starships, Picard and his fellow captains discover abizarre menace of unimaginable power. And the only way to trapthis destructive entity is to use the Enterprise as bait.

Diane Duane is the author of The Door Into Fire, which was nominated for the World Science Fiction Society's John W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction/fantasy writer two years in a row. Duane has also published more than thirty novels, numerous short stories, and various comics and computer games, several of which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. She is best known for her continuing Young Wizards series of young adult fantasy novels about the New York-based teenage wizards Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez. The 1983 novel So You Want to Be a Wizard and its six sequels have been published in seven other languages.