Now wired into 'streamspace' with an AI lover who interacts with her through both male and female hosts, Li is tapped to investigate the murder of physicist Hannah Sharifi, her cloned twin who hoped to share the crystals' power. Resembling the Victorian British empire, the UN's vast interstellar commercial empire runs on the blood and sweat of a few thousand pitifully exploited miners like Li's father, who died so she could remake herself and escape the miners' fate. Major Catherine Li and her fellow UN Peacekeepers battle hive-minded Syndicate genetic constructs for domination of planets settled through FTL (faster than light) migrations enabled by mysterious crystals, quantum-level anomalies of unimagined substance mined only on Compson's World. And one wrong turn in streamspace, one misstep in the dark alleys of blackmarket tech and interstellar espionage, one risky hookup with an AI could literally blow her mind.ĭespite incorporating nearly every well-worn SF theme, Moriarty still manages fresh insights into humanity and posthumanity in this highly atmospheric debut, a hefty far-future exploration of AI, human cloning, class conflict and plain old-fashioned murder.

Suddenly Li is chasing a killer in an alien world miles underground where everyone has a secret. And a mining “accident” that is starting to look more and more like murder. A missing dataset that could change the interstellar balance of power and turn a cold war hot. A dead physicist who just happens to be her cloned twin. But no memory upgrade can prepare Li for what she finds on Compson’s World: a mining colony she once called home and to which she is sent after a botched raid puts her on the bad side of the powers that be.

And Li should know she’s been hacking her memory for fifteen years in order to pass as human. But that’s what backup hard drives are for. UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li has made thirty-seven faster-than-light jumps in her lifetime-and has probably forgotten more than most people remember. From a stunning new voice in hard science fiction comes the thrilling story of one woman’s quest to wrest truth from chaos, love from violence, and reality from illusion in a post-human universe of emergent AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware.

Spin state by chris moriarty