An alternate history in which the United States finds itself at war with Japan and Germany in a third World War. Resource shortages have forced the president into a position of territorial concession while slowly working to recover ground. As part of this effort, a new man-made state called Stark was established as a symbol of hope for the beginning of a new American chapter. The state is new and disorganized — criminal justice systems and other institutional infrastructure were never developed in time. The result is Stark Penitentiary, a prison that operates under its own rules, holding some of the most unusual inmates imaginable, each carrying a complicated personal history and complicated feelings about the people sharing their cells.