Humanity believes it created Earth’s climate catastrophe. It had help.

For thousands of years, an alien race has secretly manipulated human civilization, directing its technological development toward pollution, global warming, and ecological collapse. Their goal is to transform Earth into a hotter, increasingly hostile planet—an environment ideally suited to their own survival but deadly to the human race. Without realizing it, humanity has been terraforming its own world for extraterrestrial colonization.

Earth’s last hope is Dennis Guise, a thirteen-year-old boy and the most powerful telepath ever born. Overwhelmed by the thoughts and personalities flooding his mind, Dennis has retreated into a catatonic state, unable to distinguish his identity from the consciousness of others. If he can master his extraordinary psychic abilities and discover who he truly is, he may become the bridge between humanity’s primordial origins and its endangered future. But can one fractured young mind expose a conspiracy millennia in the making—and reclaim a planet already approaching the brink of extinction?

Bridge of Ashes by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Roger Zelazny is an experimental environmental science fiction novel set on a near-future Earth threatened by climate disaster and alien invasion. Told through lyrical, impressionistic prose, this prescient work of speculative fiction blends psychological suspense, paranormal powers, and apocalyptic stakes. Zelazny explores themes of identity, human evolution, planetary engineering, and environmental exploitation, presenting global warming not merely as a natural disaster but as a deliberate act of ecological destruction orchestrated by ancient extraterrestrials.

Perfect for fans of Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, and James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon), as well as readers of ecological science fiction, climate-catastrophe sci-fi thrillers, environmental dystopias, cosmic conspiracies, alien invasion apocalypse novels, and experimental speculative fiction about extinction, evolution, and the future of Earth.

"A storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen."  –George R.R. Martin

". . . his performance was never anything other than dazzling."  –Robert Silverberg

Prefer a physical book? Sadly, no authorized print edition of this title is currently available from any publisher. Fortunately, Positronic Publishing holds the exclusive ebook rights granted by the Zelazny estate, so this adventure remains available to our readers in digital format. (Believe us, we'd love to see this one on our bookshelves, too!)