Total Format

Misspent Youth

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:28:51 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: From the author of the magnificent 'Night's Dawn' trilogy, a provocative look at the days not too long after tomorrow It is forty years into the future and, following decades of research and trillions of Euros spent on genetics, Europe is finally in a position to rejuvenate a human being. As the first subject for treatment, is chosen Jeff Baker - the father of the datasphere (which replaced the internet) and philanthropist extraordinaire. After eighteen months in a German medical facility, the seventy-eight-year-old patient returns home looking like a healthy twenty-year-old. MISSPENT YOUTH follows the effect his reappearance has on his family and friends -- his young ex-model wife Sue, his teenage son Tim, and also on his long-term pals who are now themselves all pensioners, and starting to resent what Jeff has become. Bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton has brought his unique story-telling skills to bear on an aspect of future living that is bound to increasingly fascinate. # Hardcover: 368 pages # Publisher: Tor (8 Nov 2002) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0333900707 # ISBN-13: 978-0333900703

Peter F. Hamilton - The Confederation Handbook

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:23:53 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Peter F Hamilton's bestselling "Night's Dawn Trilogy" has been one of the most triumphant works of science fiction to appear in decades. Swiftly gathering a worldwide readership, this masterwork of cosmic imagination and sheer storytelling amounts to over 3,7000 pages (or 1,200,000 words) in total, and has brought to life an entire galaxy of diverse planets and astonishing civilisations. At the core of this magnificent creation is the Confederation itself: an assembly of human and xenoc colony worlds and asteroid settlements whose cultures and conflicts and turmoils are described over a time line of nearly 600 years. To mark the completion of this awesome trilogy, Peter F Hamilton has produced The Confederation Handbook as an essential companion guide to the diverse elements of the massive universe he has created. Here we have his personal exposition of Adamist culture, Edenist culture, the starships, the status of the Confederation in 2610, a description of sentient xenoc species, as well as a full list of characters and their roles, and , of course, details of the Timeline itself # Hardcover: 240 pages # Publisher: Tor (28 Sep 2000) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0333785886 # ISBN-13: 978-0333785881

Peter F. Hamilton - A Second Chance at Eden

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:19:46 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: This novella and six stories are set in the same universe and time-line as the "Night's Dawn" trilogy. # Paperback: 512 pages # Publisher: Tor (8 Oct 1999) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330351826 # ISBN-13: 978-0330351829

Peter F. Hamilton - Fallen Dragon

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:17:37 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: From the author of the bestselling 'Night's Dawn Trilogy', a new space adventure on galactic scale. Born in a colony world in 2310, Lawrence Newton hankered after the golden era of starships exploring the galaxy. But the age of human starflight was drawing to a close, so this hot-heated teenager ran away from home in search of adventure...Twenty years later, he's the sergeant of a washed-out platoon taking part in the bungled invasion of another world. The giant corporations call such campaigns 'asset realization', but in practice it's simple piracy. While he's on the ground, being shot at and firebombed by local resistance forces, Lawrence hears stories about the Temple of the Fallen Dragon -- and a sect devoted to the worship of a mythical creature that fell to the ground millennia ago. More importantly, its priests are said to guard a hoard of treasure large enough to buy lifelong happiness -- which information prompts him to mount a private-enterprise operation of his own. # Paperback: 650 pages # Publisher: Tor; New Ed edition (5 Jul 2002) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330480065 # ISBN-13: 978-0330480062

Peter F. Hamilton - The Nano Flower

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:15:38 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Hamilton's third Greg Mandel novel. A strangely beautiful flower is delivered anonymously to Julia Evans, head of the Event Horizon conglomerate. When Greg Mandel sees it he is devastated at the wave of psychic power that pours out from it. The flower may be a message from an alien intelligence. # Paperback: 576 pages # Publisher: Tor; Unabridged edition (10 Mar 1995) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330330446 # ISBN-13: 978-0330330442

Peter F. Hamilton - A Quantum Murder

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:14:10 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Dr Edward Kitchener, is a brilliant researcher into quantum cosmology for the Event Horizon conglomerate, but no good to anybody now, lying dead with his lungs spread out on either side of his open chest. The security system at Launde Abbey was premier-grade, yet a mercenary could still have got through, and plenty of people anxious to stop Kitchener's work would pay the killer's fee. But why would a professional waste time in ritually slaughtering the target? Event Horizon needs to know fast, so Greg Mandel, psi-boosted ex-private eye, is enticed out of retirement to launch himself on a convoluted trail involving confrontation with a past which - according to Kitchener's theories - might never have happened. # Paperback: 384 pages # Publisher: Tor; Unabridged edition (April 1994) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330330454 # ISBN-13: 978-0330330459

Peter F. Hamilton - Mindstar Rising

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:11:13 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: It's the 21st century and global warming is here to stay, so forget the way your country used to look. And get used to the free market, too - the companies possess all the best hardware, and they're calling the shots now. In a world like this, a man open to any offers can make out just fine. A man like Greg Mandel for instance, who's psi-boosted, wired into the latest sensory equipment, carrying state-of-the-art weaponry - and late of the English Army's Mindstar Battalion. As the cartels battle for control of a revolutionary new power source, and corporate greed outstrips national security, tension is mounting to boiling point - and Greg Mandel is about to face the ultimate test. # Paperback: 438 pages # Publisher: Tor; Unabridged edition (27 Aug 1999) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330323768 # ISBN-13: 978-0330323765

Peter F. Hamilton - Pandora's Star

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:51:16 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across. When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them. For what if their disappearance indicates some kind of galactic conflict? Since a conventional wormhole cannot be used to reach these vanished stars, for the first time humans need to build a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance. But it arrives to find each 'vanished' star encased in a giant force field -- and within one of them resides a massive alien civilisation. # Paperback: 1152 pages # Publisher: Tor; New Ed edition (4 Mar 2005) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330493310 # ISBN-13: 978-0330493314

Peter F. Hamilton - Judas Unchained

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:35:35 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Humanity's interstellar Commonwealth is in serious trouble. Thirteen of its hundreds of worlds (linked by wormholes and high-speed trains) were lost to a first mass attack by the insanely hostile alien Primes. The controlling Prime intelligence, MorningLightMountain, can imagine no way of dealing with first contact but genocide--and has the resources to do it. Amid political and personal chaos, it's becoming clear that the war was arranged by a third party. For centuries, only the fanatical, outlawed Guardians cult believed in this mysterious influence called the Starflyer. New evidence emerges, only to vanish again. Key figures are destroyed by near-invincible assassins crammed with inbuilt "wetwired" weaponry. One determined detective is on the track, but she faces massive political opposition. The multi-stranded action follows many criss-crossing human stories, with fights, pursuits, quests, deaths, resurrections, exotic landscapes and armaments, good sex, and several interesting aliens. Betrayals are frequent, thanks to brainwashed Starflyer agents in positions of trust. Only the Guardians have a scheme to deal with the Starflyer itself--a grandiose strategy known as "the planet's revenge"--but no one trusts those crazy cultists� In space, the arms race becomes dizzying, with Prime doomsday weapons used against suns while frantic human research leads to "quantumbusters" so appalling that there's serious moral debate about their use. Can we face the guilt of total genocide, even against a horror like MorningLightMountain? Or is there some way to force this psychopathic genie back into the bottle? # Paperback: 1100 pages # Publisher: Tor; New Ed edition (5 May 2006) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330493531 # ISBN-13: 978-0330493536

Peter F. Hamilton - The Naked God (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:32:45 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: The third volume in the 'Night's Dawn' trilogy Hell just went quantum...The Confederation is starting to collapse politically and economically, allowing the 'possessed' to infiltrate more worlds. Quinn Dexter is loose on Earth, destroying the giant arcologies one at a time. As Louise Kavanagh tries to track him down, she manages to acquire some strange and powerful allies whose goal does not match her own. The campaign to liberate Mortonbridge from the possessed degenerates into a horrendous land battle, the kind that hasn't been seen by humankind for six hundred years. Then some of the protagonists escape in a very unexpected direction...Joshua Clavert and Syrinx now fly their starships on a mission to find the Sleeping God - which an alien race believes holds the key to finally overthrowing the possessed. # Paperback: 1184 pages # Publisher: Tor; New Ed edition (7 Oct 2005) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330351451 # ISBN-13: 978-0330351454

Peter F. Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:27:08 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race, which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction". It is the nightmare, which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history. "Absolute vintage science-fiction. Hamilton puts British sci-fi back into interstellar overdrive" - "The Times". # Paperback: 588 pages # Publisher: Pan Books; Unabridged edition (1996) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330340328 # ISBN-13: 978-0330340328

Peter F. Hamilton - The Neutronium Alchemist (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:25:24 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: The second volume in the "Night's Dawn" trilogy. An ancient menace has escaped from Lalonde, shattering the Confederation's existence. In such times the last thing the galaxy needs is a new, powerful weapon. Yet Dr Mzu is determined to retrieve the Alchemist, so that she can complete a vendetta. # Paperback: 1225 pages # Publisher: Tor; New Ed edition (9 Oct 1998) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0330351435 # ISBN-13: 978-0330351430

Peter F. Hamilton - The Dreaming Void

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:23:24 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome. At its centre is a massive black hole. This Void is not a natural artefact. Inside there is a strange universe where the laws of physics are very different to those we know. It is slowly consuming the other stars of the galactic core - one day it will have devoured the entire galaxy. Inigo, a human, has started to dream of a wonderful existence of the Void. He has a following of millions of believers. They now clamour to make a pilgrimage into the Void to live the life they have been shown. Other starfaring species fear their migration will cause the Void to expand again. They are prepared to stop them no matter what the cost. And so the pilgrimage begins... # Paperback: 795 pages # Publisher: Pan Books (2 May 2008) # Language English # ISBN-10: 033044302X # ISBN-13: 978-0330443029

Alastair Reynolds - Zima Blue and Other Stories

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:08:00 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: The stories in "Zima Blue" represent a more optimistic take on humanity's future, a view that says there may be wars, there may be catastrophes and cosmic errors, but something human will still survive # Paperback: 300 pages # Publisher: Night Shade Books (15 May 2007) # Language English # ISBN-10: 1597800791 # ISBN-13: 978-1597800792

Alastair Reynolds - Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days: Tales from the Revelation

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:05:24 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Just when you thought it was safe to go back into interstellar space . . . Alastair Reynolds burst onto the SF scene with the Arthur C. Clarke Award-shortlisted REVELATION SPACE, British Science Fiction Award-winning CHASM CITY, and REDEMPTION ARK. Now experience the phenomenal imagination and breathtaking vision of 'The most exciting space opera writer working today' (Locus) in these two tales of high adventure set in the same universe as his novels. The title story, 'Diamond Dogs', tells of a group of mercenaries trying to unravel the mystery of a particularly inhospitable alien tower on a distant world; 'Turquoise Days' is about Naqi, who has devoted her life to studying the alien Pattern Jugglers. # Paperback: 240 pages # Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (9 Oct 2003) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575075163 # ISBN-13: 978-0575075160

Alastair Reynolds - House of Suns

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:02:25 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every two hundred thousand years, to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings. Campion and Purslane are not only late for their thirty-second reunion, but they have brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. The surviving shatterlings have to dodge exotic weapons while they regroup to try to solve the mystery of who is persecuting them, and why - before their ancient line is wiped out of existence, for ever. # Hardcover: 480 pages # Publisher: Gollancz (17 April 2008) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575077174 # ISBN-13: 978-0575077171

Alastair Reynolds - Galactic North

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:45:04 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Set in the Revelation Space universe-the first short story collection by "one of SF's best and most ambitious novelists." (SFX) With eight short stories and novellas- including three original to this collection- Galactic North imparts the centuries-spanning events that have produced the dark and turbulent world of Revelation Space. Centuries from now, the basic right to expand human intelligence-beyond its natural limits-has become a war-worthy cause for the Demarchists and Conjoiners. Only vast lighthugger starships bind these squabbling colonies together, manned by the panicky and paranoid Ultras. And the hyperpigs just try to keep their heads down. The rich get richer. And everyone tries not to think about the worrying number of extinct alien civilizations turning up on the outer reaches of settled space...because who's to say that humanity won't be next? # Paperback: 400 pages # Publisher: Gollancz (8 Nov 2007) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575079843 # ISBN-13: 978-0575079847

Alastair Reynolds - Century Rain

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:42:05 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Three hundred years in the future, Verity Auger is a specialist in the archaeological exploration of Earth, rendered uninhabitable after the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. After a field-trip to goes badly wrong, Verity is forced to redeem herself by participating in a dangerous mission, for which her expertise in invaluable. Using a backdoor into an unstable alien transit system, Auger's faction has discovered something astonishing at the far end of a wormhole: mid twentieth-century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber. Is it a window into the past, a simulation, or something else entirely? CENTURY RAIN is not just a time-travel story, nor a tale of alternate history. Part hard SF thriller, part interstellar adventure, part noir romance, CENTURY RAIN is something altogether stranger. # Paperback: 544 pages # Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (3 Oct 2005) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575076917 # ISBN-13: 978-0575076914 # Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 12.7 x 4.1 cm

Alastair Reynolds - Pushing Ice

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:39:25 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Some centuries from now, the exploration and exploitation of the Solar System is in full swing. On the cold edge of the system, Bella Lind, captain of the huge commercial spacecraft Rockhopper IV, helps fuel this new gold rush by attaching mass-driver motors to organic-rich water-ice comets to move them back to the inner worlds. Her crew are tough, blue-collar miners, engineers and demolition experts. Around Saturn, something inexplicable happens: one of the moons leaves its orbit and accelerates out of the Solar System. The icy mantle peels away to reveal that it was never a moon in the first place, just a parked spacecraft, millions of years old, that has now decided to move on. Rockhopper IV, trapped in the pull, is hurled across time and space into the deep, distant future, arriving in a vast, alien-constructed chamber. And the crew are not alone, for each chamber contains an alien culture dragged into this cosmic menagerie at the end of time. The crew of the Rockhopper IV know a lot about blowing up comets, but not much about first contact with ultra-advanced aliens. They have two things to worry about: can they (and their new alien allies) negotiate their way through each harrying contact? And can they assimilate the avalanche of knowledge about their own future - including all the glittering, dangerous technologies that are now theirs for the taking - without destroying themselves in the process? # Paperback: 528 pages # Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (12 Oct 2006) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575078154 # ISBN-13: 978-0575078154

Alastair Reynolds - The Prefect

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:36:30 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a policeman of sorts, and one of the best. His force is Panoply, and his beat is the multi-faceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone. These days, his job is his life. A murderous attack against a Glitter Band habitat is nasty, but it looks to be an open-and-shut case - until Dreyfus starts looking under some stones that some very powerful people would really rather stayed unturned. What he uncovers is far more serious than mere gruesome murder: a covert takeover bid by a shadowy figure, Aurora (who may once have been human but certainly isn't now), who believes the people of the Glitter Band should no longer be in charge of their own destiny. Dreyfus discovers that to save something precious, you may have to destroy part of it # Paperback: 512 pages # Publisher: Gollancz (10 April 2008) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575082186 # ISBN-13: 978-0575082182

Alastair Reynolds - Chasm City

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:32:44 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: In Chasm City, Alastair Reynolds revisits the noir universe of his debut SF blockbuster Revelation Space with a suspenseful, convoluted pursuit story. Its dizzying reversals and games of disguise are reminiscent of Iain M Banks at his trickiest. The main narrative stars trained killer Tanner Mirabel, a man hell-bent on revenge, who stalks his enemy Reivich from the world Sky's Edge across a 15-year interstellar gap to the gaudy, poisoned melting pot of Chasm City. Flashbacks reveal the violent events and worse repercussions that so badly twisted Mirabel and others. Virus-induced dreams provide a third story line from inside the head of legendary traitor-messiah Sky Haussmann, who long ago shaped the original colonisation of Sky's Edge and whose real story never got into the history books. Chasm City's complications include spectacular space-elevator sabotage, faulty antimatter drives, hidden aliens, mystery drugs, exotic bio-modification, tailored disease, high-tech weaponry, a new and deadlier form of bungee-jumping, and that traditional SF symptom of decadence: organised hunts with human prey. Violent death is never far off, but our protagonist has deeper worries in that his own motives and memories, even his identity, don't seem to add up quite as they should ... # Paperback: 616 pages # Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (10 Jan 2002) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575073659 # ISBN-13: 978-0575073654

Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:29:38 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: With Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds completes the star-spanning Inhibitors trilogy in which the previous books were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. The Inhibitors are a mechanical plague, mindlessly but very resourcefully wiping out space-going civilisations that come to their notice. Their latest target is humanity, which lost a round in Redemption Ark. One small human faction now has stealth weapons and technologies that can almost fight Inhibitor assault to a standstill, but running away still seems the only long-term option. From the same cryptic source as that supertechnology, filtered through a young girl's mind, comes the urgent message to make an interstellar trek to Hela, barren moon of the gas-giant Haldora. Hela is home to an obsessive religion fuelled partly by mind viruses and partly by the miracle of Haldora. This unpredictable, unbelievable event happens in an eyeblink, but more and more often. For the devout this increasing frequency is a signal of the End Times, which is why a group of vast mobile cathedrals lumbers forever around Hela--to keep Haldora at the zenith for best observation of its marvels. And on this last circuit, with a madman in command, the greatest cathedral of all plans an impossible short cut over the mysterious, delicate bridge spanning an immense rift in Hela's surface: Absolution Gap. # Paperback: 672 pages # Publisher: Gollancz (13 May 2004) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575075570 # ISBN-13: 978-0575075573

Alastair Reynolds - Redemption Ark

Ratio — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:26:03 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Redemption Ark is Alastair Reynolds's third hefty SF novel, a direct sequel to his debut book Revelation Space, and also linked with Chasm City, which won the British SF Association Award. Gripping high-tech action features various groups struggling for control of a cache of "hell-class weapons", while the alien Inhibitors--who stamp out space-going intelligence wherever they find it--are busy dismantling planets to build a doomsday engine of awesome size. Building on the previous books, the interstellar situation is exhilaratingly complex. Major players from Revelation Space are still at large in the solar system containing the new Inhibitor construction site, the vast old starship Nostalgia for Infinity (hideously transformed and merged with its captain by "Melding Plague"), the hell-weapons, and the colonized planet Resurgam--which may need to be evacuated at speed. Many light years away, the mechanically enhanced human Conjoiners are fighting a space war around Yellowstone, the world of Chasm City. Although victory approaches, the Conjoiners are frantically building advanced starships and planning to run for their lives, thanks to an incredibly dangerous project that sucked information from the future--including news of the Inhibitors. The Conjoiners have their own internal factions, at least one of which isn't what it seems, and a fresh split leads to a tense relativistic race for the Resurgam system and those coveted hell-weapons. Booby-traps and deadly strategems enliven the desperate journey. Other, non-Conjoiner humans--not to mention machine intelligences and genetically engineered man-pig chimeras--are caught up in the intrigue and violence. Many members of this large cast have inner secrets, other identities, painful relationships, long-concealed guilt. As at last they converge on the Resurgam system, there are jolting surprises. Meanwhile, the immense past and future of Reynolds' universe becomes clearer, a cosmic tapestry with the deep-time scope of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee series, ranging from the Dawn War in the early aeons of galactic life to a cataclysmic event still three billion years in the future. A disaster which the loathed robotic Inhibitors are working patiently to minimise.... # Paperback: 528 pages # Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (8 May 2003) # Language English # ISBN-10: 0575073845 # ISBN-13: 978-0575073845 # Product Dimensions: 17.7 x 13.2 x 6 cm

Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space

Ratio — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:27:28 +0000

by: Ratio

Description: Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy. Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defences: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby-trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare. Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendas--Khouri the reluctant contract-assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanity--and there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal and ingenious lies. The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons. Product details * Paperback: 560 pages * Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (3 May 2001) * Language English * ISBN-10: 1857987489 * ISBN-13: 978-1857987485