{"product_id":"2940153701264","title":"The Day the Earth Shuddered and Went Dark","description":"\u003cp\u003eTraveling a vast distance over an incalculable number of years, a massive cloud of microbes enters the solar system. The collective speeds inexorably toward Earth.\u003cbr\u003eIn the early morning hours of a May 20, 2108, it slaps into the Pacific Ocean several miles off the California coast.\u003cbr\u003eAnd billions upon billions of microbes are jarred loose.\u003cbr\u003eThey awaken from their stasis.\u003cbr\u003eThey ride the wind and fall to the earth in rain.\u003cbr\u003eThey flow along in rivers, streams and lakes.\u003cbr\u003eWithin hours they cover the western United States, western Canada and Mexico. Within days they cross the Atlantic and spread around the world.\u003cbr\u003eA new life form?\u003cbr\u003eAn alien life form?\u003cbr\u003eThey are not benevolent, and they are not beneficial.\u003cbr\u003eAwakened from a long sleep, they hunger.\u003cbr\u003eAnd they eat. Voraciously.\u003cbr\u003eThey prefer the warm-bloods. Mammals die within minutes of contact. Including humans.\u003cbr\u003eWell, most humans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter five years in its conception and completion, this is Nicolas Z Porter's debut novel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAliens and alien invasions take many forms. To the hard-working residents of a newly constructed ant hill, when a massive creature places a size 10 shoe atop their home, the invasion is blatant and destructive. Their children, the zygotes still wrapped in a protective shell, are crushed beneath the surface.\u003cbr\u003eThey weep. They mourn. They cart off their dead.\u003cbr\u003eAnd they rebuild.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are also other kinds of intra-planetary alien invasions.\u003cbr\u003eEvery day, every human on Earth is invaded with millions of microbial organisms. All of them hunger for sustenance. All of them feed.\u003cbr\u003eBut they don’t come swooping in from a distant planet in spaceships, so we pay them no mind. Our scientists even label some of them benevolent or beneficial.\u003cbr\u003eBut what if a group of truly alien microbes—alien even to the earth itself—came swooping in from another planet? Or farther out?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FrostProof808","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070422925552,"sku":"2940153701264","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940153701264_p0.jpg?v=1764094804","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940153701264","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}