After the Machines. Episode One: Awakening

Select Praise for "This Mortal Coil" and Robert Stanek

"Robert Stanek is one of our most featured and respected Kids & Young Adults authors." -- The Audio Book Store

"This one's memorable and fascinating heroine is someone you're going to love as much as Katniss Everdeen." - Sandra Brown, author

"A gripping tale. Perfectly paced and brilliantly plotted." - Cathy Thompson, author

"Stanek's written many good, even great, books. This one's exceptional. Read it!" - Shannon Hale, author

"Builds and builds to a crescendo. Part Stephen King, part Suzanne Collins, part Max Brooks, 100% phenomenal!" - David Eastman, author

"Wonderful action writing. Fast, fun, and smart." - Margaret Brown, author

"Anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games, World War Z, or The Maze Runner is going to enjoy this book." - Lisa Gardner, author

"What an amazing book! Unique and innovative, captivating to the end." - Mary Osborne, author

Our world isn't ours any more. It's theirs. The human survivors lead a hardscrabble life, scavenging what they can from the dead city, waiting and watching. Cedes isn't like Matthew and his regulars. She dreams. She talks. She questions. She wonders why Luke disappeared, where Luke disappeared to. She wants to know what we are to the machines. This is her story. This is our story. This is the story of us, the humans who survive.

In the ruins of our world, a new order arose, an order controlled by the very machines humankind created. The end for us came not from a massive global war but from something unthinkable, incomprehensible. The machines simply replaced us and we let them, and so, in the end, humanity went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. No shots fired. No bombs dropped. No cities destroyed. We ended and the machines began--or at least that is what the few human survivors of the machine apocalypse believe.