Beyond the Night

In Ware's profanity-saturated debut, Dr. Elliott Drake and his friends Quent and Wyatt are trapped underground and knocked unconscious when the immortal Strangers arrive to destroy human civilization. The trio awaken after 50 years, unaged, and escape the cave to find that two of them now have odd powers and everything familiar has vanished. After six months of wandering amid desolation, they rescue some teens from an attack of quasi-humans with the help of Jade, a mysterious woman on horseback. The teens lead the men to their city of Envy (pop. 2,000), formerly Las Vegas, where Jade draws Elliott into romance as well as efforts to understand and dispel the Strangers' powers. Ware creates a convincing and chaotic world, complete with ocean, elephants and tigers on the Nevada terrain, but the story seems too sparse to fill the planned three books. (Jan.)