Providence

'Compelling and innovative... Barry takes a story that has been done countless times before and makes it seem original' - Daily Mail\nShe is the ultimate weapon. She once served us. Now she's got her own plans.\nOnce we approached the aliens in peace... and they annihilated us. Now mankind has developed the ultimate killing machine, the Providence class of spaceship.\nWith the ships' frightening speed, frightening intelligence and frightening weaponry, it's now the salamanders' turn to be annihilated... in their millions.\nThe mismatched quartet of Talia, Gilly, Jolene and Anders are the crew on one of these destroyers. But with the ship's computers designed to outperform human decision-making in practically all areas, they are virtual bystanders. The Providence will take them to where the enemy are and she will dictate the strategy in any battle.\nThe crew's only job role is to publicise their glorious war to a sceptical Earth. Social media and video clips are THEIR weapons in an endless charm offensive. THEIR chief enemy is not the space reptiles but each other, and boredom.\nBut then everything changes. A message comes from base: the Providence is going into the Violet Zone, where there are no beacons and no communications with Earth. It is the heart of the enemy empire - and now the crew are left to wonder whether this is a mission of ultimate destruction or, more sinisterly, of ultimate self-destruction...\nPROVIDENCE is a dazzling, inventive, and thought-provoking new novel from the author of Lexicon.