Children of the Great Reckoning, Firewall, Book 2: Samu'el

The Children of the Great Reckoning Series continues in Firewall: Book 2: Samu'el Samue'l Stelle remembers very little of his life as a human child. Injured in a horrific accident, his mind has been at play in a nanotech-driven game for nearly two decades. His only living companion in this alternate world is Nuress, an artificial intelligence originally designed to create Sam's game experiences from the stuff of his own mind. But in a world where everything is simply Sam mirrored back to himself, sanity is becoming a precious commodity. Nuress, seeking to protect his fragile heart, bonds Sam to another young man, Ianto Tobali. They touch at last through the nanotech they carry in their biological bodies, and find in each other a reason to live. But Ianto is already a pawn in a world bruised first by plagues and then the bizarre genetic changes imposed on a whole generation of children. If Sam is a creator, then Ianto is a surely a destroyer, the man who breaks things from within. Their union ties together both consensual reality and the Game, and the ripples from that connection will force all beings to redefine the very parameters of what it means to be human as well as the very nature of that emotion called love.