The tiny planet Morobe's Pea has been sold and renamed Walden. The new owner has some interesting ideas. Voluntary simplicity will rule in the Transcendent State; Walden is destined to become a paradise covered in lush new forests. But even believers find temptations in the black markets; non-believers are willing to defend their ideals with fire. Walden's only hope may lie with a third option: a very unlikely alien intervention. In Burn, James Patrick Kelly (Think Like a Dinosaur) delivers an innovative, entertaining, and morally-complex vision of the perils of idealism.