"An epic tale of visionary futures and scientific speculation." --Library Journal

Millions of years from now, humanity will be on the brink of self-destruction. The world's great leaders have created an elite group who, by their superior wisdom and abilities, keep the peace, maintain progress, and otherwise safeguard humanity's future. Genetically enhanced, they are the carriers of Earth's greatest talents, a force unlike any in the history of mankind.

For ten million years, the Families dominated the galaxy. But then Alice, a brilliant scientist of the Chamberlain family, took part in an attempt to create a new galaxy. Her experiment unleashed vast forces that the family could not control, causing a catastrophe that killed untold billions of people on many worlds.

Before she was punished for her role in the debacle, Alice visited Ord, a younger Chamberlain. Only he, of all the people in the galaxy, knows what Alice tells him. Her words launch him upon a quest that will take him across the vast reaches of space. He must discover his own true nature, and somehow restore the family honor. Sister Alice is his epic story.

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### From Booklist

The members of the Families were cloned from carefully selected individuals and given godlike powers to keep the peace. They have served well enough, and then Alice, one of the oldest Chamberlains, returns with news of a pocket universe in the galactic core that will destroy a vast swathe of the highly populated central galaxy. Ord, the Baby Chamberlain, is charged with finding explanations and possible solutions. In an almost incomprehensible timescale, he fights forces set on toppling the Families for their hubris and travels to the galactic core, picking up attributes Alice left for him along the way. In a perfectly timed, unexpected denouement, Ord flees through a wormhole to tell the elders what will happen when they open the baby universe, followed by his two oldest friends and most implacable enemies. The people of Reed's imaginative future are strange because they live for so long and play such bizarre games with reality, yet they are ultimately recognizable as fellows to mere humans, such as present-day readers