John Tietjen loves New York City. Even as millions of other urbanites retreat behind security guards and steel gates, fleeing the swelling numbers of gangbangers and homeless, John takes his sons throughout the city, trying to teach them its joys and beauties. But John's ex-wife fears the city; and, seeking to screen their sons from his influence, she persuades John to take a consulting job in the safety of the suburbs. When John is in Massachusetts, garbled broadcasts and swarming refugees reveal that disaster has struck New York. Fire, flood, earthquake, explosions-- the reports are contradictory, but all dreadful. John returns to New York despite the dangers to find his family, to preserve what he can, and to find himself confronting the force behind the nightmarish destruction.

Tough, literate, and wise, The Stone War, a first novel by Madeleine E. Robins, is a dark and powerful modern fantasy.

Source: Cynthia Ward, Amazon.com.