Edge begins with a massive and catastrophic shifting of the San Andreas fault. The fears of California someday tumbling into the sea—that have become the stuff of parody—become real. But even the terror resulting from this catastrophe pales in comparison to the understanding behind its happening, a cataclysm extending beyond mankind's understanding of horror as it had previously been known. The world is falling apart because things are out of joint at the quantum level, about which of course there's never been any guarantee that everything has to remain stable.