Three women, three worlds. Or rather one woman in three alternative selves, in three alternative worlds:Dr. Ann Lucas, former NASA scientist and present mental patient. In her world Kennedy was never murdered, the space program has gone forward, and she was working on the manned Mars mission when she began having the terrible visions that ruined her life and put her in a fancy mental institution. Mad Jack, one-eyed gunwoman and occasional mercenary; killer of rapists, lover of women. Across the poisoned wasteland left by Nixon's nuclear war, even the toughest marauders respect her--or die. And Jay Younger, known to her readers simply as Jay: science fiction writer and alcoholic, her career and talent wrecked by drink. She lives in our own allegedly real world.... But something impossible is happening, now; the boundaries are breaking down, and they begin finding themselves in one another's worlds. Their lives become a struggle to survive, separately and then together, pursued by frightening not-quite-human beings from yet another world. In the process they find new insights into their own separate and collective identities--as well as a strange and powerful love.