"Is everything we thought we knew wrong?"

Woven into much of our thinking about hypothetical first contact between Earth and an alien race are a couple of assumptions. The first is that we will necessarily know when it happens. The second is the persistent notion, based on our own tendencies is that alien motives are likely to be malevolent.

But are either assumptions true? In Tier Zero, Vol. I of the Knolan Cycle, first contact happened over thirty years ago, but life on Earth or Kurrithäal as the Knolans call it, goes on as though it never happened But for Marty Tellus and Lysia, his Waykeeper mentor, the change has been dramatic and transformative. Neither will ever be the same.

And what about the Knolans' motives for making contact? Let's just say it's complicated. Tier Zero is the first stage in Marty's perilously beautiful journey, altering not only his own destiny but many whose lives he will touch along the way.