Maelstrom — J. Richard Jacobs

Book 2, Maelstrom, serves as a bridge between books 1 and 3 of the trilogy. It is short, barely a novella, and may be read as a stand-alone. This book provides filler information so that you, the reader, may understand what occurred to bring about the cultural and technological changes you will find in the third instalment, Book 3: Tapper Tom, Mooch, and the Traveler. The first book is solid science fiction based in fact and real possibility. The third book is an adventure, still science fiction, but based more in conjecture, fun and action.

In Book 1 of The Rain Trilogy, Storm Cloud Rising, the unthinkable came to light. There was no refuting that the comets and rocks were there. Many of them could be seen and tracked-but more could not, hiding behind sheaths of carbon black in a huge sky and, unless caught in the frantic radar and infrared sweeps after the first discovery, remaining invisible in the immense darkness of space. It is, after all, a huge sky and it takes some time to map all of it with the thoroughness required to "know" what is coming, where it is coming from and where it is going. Especially in a world where the infrastructure has crumbled, leaving no organized force to do the work of unveiling those clumps of ice, stone and metal hurtling toward the sun from all directions and at incredible speeds. Not everyone knew what that meant, but there were some, nesting in high, untouchable places and they were determined to keep it secret from an unsuspecting public; people whom they knew with some certainty and justification would panic and demand answers. Answers the pundits could not and would not answer. Their people would want protection. Protection that could not be offered. It could not even be lied into existence. But that's what all those governments were there for, right? To defend and protect their citizens from disaster?