A curiously shaped exoplanet has become home to a space-faring race who have fled their exhausted home planet. There is a ‘Great Plan’ that they are committed to; the quest to establish a new Eden in Outer Space. But this plan requires strict adherence to the predictions of their Quantum Computer and the unwitting obedience of their subjects, the Bowlanders. The development of these people in one part of the planet has been deliberately controlled and led by the more technologically advanced people from the other side of the planet, the Uplanders. On this world of fantastic physical structures where the Uplanders rule supreme dissent begins to rear its head within Uplander ranks as they struggle to interpret the visions of the Quantum Computer. But, some of the Bowlanders begin to question and investigate the purpose of their masters. The two sides are headed towards a ‘first contact’ type meeting which will lead to confrontation and death. Both sides will never be the same again.
From space the planet had a curious look. On one side it had a huge, open depression; a ‘bowl’ like physical feature perhaps sculpted by cosmic forces. Surrounded, on all sides by an almost perfect ring of cliffs which reared up with impossible smoothness to many thousands of feet. Beyond the rim of this fantastic structure a gently rising terrain led to a vast plateau that encompassed almost all the other side of the planet.
Below in the ‘bowl’ four distinct lands lie around a central ocean. The people who live there, ‘Bowlanders’, enjoy a fossil-fuel burning society which is busy trading with and spying on their neighbours, with some control exercised by acknowledged security forces. High above, the ‘Uplanders’ live in a highly developed, space-faring society with strict and unique mores. They monitor and influence the development of ‘Bowland’. Usually by subtle means but also by regularly releasing, in a spectacular fashion, carefully prepared new technology on the ‘Wall of Knowledge’ for all the Bowlanders to benefit from. But the Uplanders will, when they think it necessary, when they believe there are deviations happening to the ‘Great Plan’, respond with extreme violence.
However, a secret group drawn from all the Bowl lands are determined to seek out the Uplanders and find the truth about their interference in the affairs of Bowland. Following a failed attempt to capture an Upland spy, two security agents are sent to investigate the possibility of reaching the rim. A chance meeting with suspicious locals leads to access to the rim and an encounter with ‘the Holder’, who is second only to the Leader in the Upland hierarchy.
Gareth is the older, more considered and cautious agent. Isobel is his younger, more impetuous and forceful partner. She has the technical skills of an engineer and the hard combativeness of a proven warrior. He has the intuition and knowledge of experience. Together with a very young Upland trainee they pass a violent test and visit Upland where they are dazzled by the life and technology of the Upland people. But the society is stagnating, and the population is falling; weighed done by the constraints of the Great Plan and the ‘vision’, or predictions, of the Quantum Computer.
Unaware that they are pawns in a power struggle they must use their different skills to escape before they are killed. Help from an unexpected quarter leads to a desperate, deadly and unforeseen conclusion.