The Chronoliths
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The Chronoliths is a 2001 science fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson. It was nominated for the 2002 Hugo award.
A paperback edition was issued in New York by Tor Books in 2002 with ISBN 0812545249.
Story
In the early 21st century, journalist Scott Warden is on an expedition in Thailand when a monolith-like artifact appears from nowhere. Upon closer examination, the artifact bears an inscription commemorating the conquest of southeast Asia by an entity known only as "Kuin" -- seventeen years in the future.
Over the next seventeen years, similar artifacts with graven images (assumed to be of Kuin, an Oriental warlord) appear all over the world, and Scott is trailed by researcher Sue Chopra at each of the appearances (others are documented in Jerusalem and Mexico, and one is predicted to appear in Wyoming). The majority of humanity has created a fatalistic cult of Kuin due to these incursions onto the past that, constructed of exotic matter, appear indestructible.
Scott, Sue, and Scott's daughter Kaitlyn arrive in Wyoming where another Kuin monument is determined to appear. Sue is determined to destroy the chronolith as it appears to prove that neither they nor Kuin is all-powerful; a side effect of the chronoliths' appearance has been to discourage human technological achievement. With its destruction, which Scott deduces could have only been done by someone with "inside information", Sue Chopra disappears. The novel ends some years later with a newly-constructed vehicle utilizing some principles of exotic matter lifting off.