New York & Boston: Little Brown, (1998) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - First science fiction novel by the author of the Easy Rawlins mystery series, this "imagines a world in which human potential is suddenly, amazingly fulfilled - a change that calls into question the meaning of human differences and the ultimate purpose and fate of the human race. Narrated by Chance, a biracial man whose entire life has been a struggle for self-definition, the novel traces the desperate attempts of the "Blues" with one of their own, a man who - struck by the inscrutable blue light at the moment he expired - has become the living embodiment of death." SIGNED on the title page. 296 pp. ISBN: 0-316570982.