The Animus Gate: Book One of The Animus Trilogy

Centuries from now, the people of Earth have colonized the stars-and we are not alone. The Milky Way is crawling with aliens who will readily fight with us for valuable resources, and the relics of less aggressive civilizations are scattered across the galaxy. On the colony world of Telamat, Darius Bakari makes a living as a tour guide for the jungle ruins of one such civilization. But when a mysterious agent of the empire hires him to take her deeper into the forest than he has ever gone before, they unearth a strange and powerful technology that has lain forgotten beneath the surface of the world for generations untold. In this primordial place where mushrooms grow like trees, the ancient device threatens to upset the balance of power in ways that no one saw coming. He thought he knew who his family was-his father who died in the jungle, chasing after treasures; his brother with a checkered past; and his long-suffering mother. But secrets buried by time will rise again, and he will be drawn into wars both old and new. To ever have a chance at a normal life, he must face a pitiless foe chasing after the same mysteries. A foe who is always somehow two steps ahead of him. One completely unexpected...yet shockingly familiar. Thomas M. McNamara has been a journalist at PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and CNET's Download.com. When not crafting sci-fi adventures, he explores the back roads of California, pretending that he's behind the wheel of a Tesla. THE ANIMUS GATE is his debut novel.