Dark State

Description

Dark State is the second book in a thrilling series - set in the same world as Charles Stross' Merchant Princes series. This book follows Empire Games. In the near-future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers - in two different timelines - is imminent. One is in the midst of its first technological revolution and the other is a hi-tech police state. And both have the capacity to wreak all-out destruction. In Commissioner Miriam Burgeson's timeline, one of her top agents is working on the defection of a major political player. If they can pull this off, their version of America might just avert civil war. Meanwhile, the Commissioner's adopted daughter and newly-minted spy, Rita, watches and waits in the rival timeline, until a sleeper cell is activated which threatens to unravel everything.

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated multiple times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages. His novels include the popular Merchant Princes and Laundry Files series. Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

Sheer brilliance: when Stross is in this mood, nobody else comes close * Kirkus (starred review) * High-octane thriller action, mixed in with personal drama and some fantastically sympathetic characters * Starburst * Plenty of fun . . . vivid * Locus * Stross's ferociously imaginative world-building is on full display here . . . few other writers can match him for humour, creativity and sheer density of ideas -- SFX on Empire Games (Book One) Charles Stross blurs the boundaries of genre until they become meaningless. When intrigue, politics and suspense are so well executed, it doesn't matter which realm, dimension or timeline the participants hail from. Add to that a sense of mischief, wit and humour and Charles Stross gives you the full package * Chris Brookmyre on Empire Games *