Within a matter of days, Simon offends the Unholy Mass, the colony's most sadistic and powerful religion. His life threatened, he realizes the only way to save himself is to become a rival faith--Shimmerism--while on the far side of the planet, a lone starship has crash-landed.
The survivors begin their own quest, searching for a fabled city of spiritual purity; their trials in the wilderness unfold in parallel with Simon Shadow's, while above them all, in orbit around Reetar, an all-powerful military force guards over the colony, laying waste to anyone foolish enough to threaten the balance of the Great Experiment--the ruling philosophy that governs humanity's colonization of new worlds.
Visit the author's web site at www.shimmerism.org