A quantum Brave New World from the boldest and most wildly speculative
writer of his generation. "Greg Egan is perhaps the most important SF
writer in the world."--Science Fiction Weekly "One of the very best
"--Locus. "Science fiction with an emphasis on science."--New York
Times Book Review**
Since the Introdus in the twenty-first century, humanity has
reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the
polises to become conscious software. Others opted for gleisners:
disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the
physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the solar
system forever in fusion-drive starships.
And there are the holdouts: the fleshers left behind in the muck and
jungle of Earth--some devolved into dream apes, others cavorting in the
seas or the air--while the statics and bridgers try to shape out a
roughly human destiny.
But the complacency of the citizens is shattered when an unforeseen
disaster ravages the fleshers and reveals the possibility that the
polises themselves might be at risk from bizarre astrophysical processes
that seem to violate fundamental laws of nature. The orphan Yatima, a
digital being grown from a mind seed, joins a group of citizens and
flesher refugees in a search for the knowledge that will guarantee their
safety--a search that puts them on the trail of the ancient and elusive
Transmuters, who have the power to reshape subatomic particles, and to
cross into the macrocosmos, where the universe we know is nothing but a
speck in the higher-dimensional vacuum.
Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud
to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science
fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future
dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban
fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires,
and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title
we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller,
or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality
books from a diverse group of authors.
