In the twenty-first century, life as we know it was changed forever by two events: the discovery of faster-than-light travel and the creation of the Eschaton, an artificial intelligence that achieved independent sentience. Four hundred years later, the far-flung human colonies that arose as a result of these two extraordinary occurrences are scattered over three thousand years of time, across a thousand parsecs of space. One such colony, the New Republic, exists in self-imposed isolation. Founded by men and women suffering from an acute case of future shock, the member-planets wanted no part of the Eschaton or the technological advances that followed its creation. But their backward ways are severely compromised when they are attacked by an information plague that calls itself The Festival. As advanced technologies suppressed for generations begin literally to fall from the sky, the colony slips into revolutionary turmoil. Help is on the way, however, in the form of a battle fleet dispatched from Earth. Or is it? Secret plans, hidden agendas, and ulterior motives abound, both on the rescue ships and among the populace of the beleaguered colony. And watching it all is the Eschaton, which has its own very definite ideas about mankind's future... Book jacket. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

In his first novel, British author Stross, one of the hottest short-story writers in the field, serves up an energetic and sometimes satiric mix of cutting-edge nanotechnology, old-fashioned space opera and leftist political commentary reminiscent of Ken MacLeod. Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour hail from an Earth that has gone through the Singularity, an accelerated technological and social evolution far beyond anything we can imagine. The Singularity was triggered by the Eschaton, a super-powerful being descended from humanity that can travel in time and that essentially rules the universe. Springfield and Mansour meet on the home world of the New Republic, a repressive, backwater society that has outlawed virtually all advanced technology other than that necessary for interstellar warfare. When one of the New Republic's colonial worlds is besieged by the Festival, an enigmatic alien intelligence, the Republic counterattacks, using time travel in an attempt to put its warships in position to catch the Festival by surprise. Springfield and Mansour, working for different masters, have both been assigned the task of either diffusing the crisis or sabotaging the New Republic's warfleet, no matter what the cost. As a newcomer to long fiction, Stross has some problems with pacing, but the book still generates plenty of excitement.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

In the twenty-fifth century, human society has depended for several hundred years on faster-than-light travel and an artificial intelligence called the Eschaton. Interstellar colonies are scattered all over, and one, the New Republic, has become a classic refuge for antitechnological holdouts. But the New Republic is suddenly under attack, literally, by the technology it has tried to suppress, which now appears under the name the Festival. An Earth battle fleet is on the way, but is it coming to help, to ride to power on the coattails of the Festival, or to fulfill some entirely separate agenda, possibly set by the Eschaton, which has achieved consciousness, sentience, and probably a lust for power? If no element of Stross' novel is very original, all of them are formidably well-executed, especially the meticulous and imaginative portrayal of the New Republic and its Victorian technology. In addition, the book possesses the rare virtue of neither requiring nor precluding a sequel. RolandGreen. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Charles Stross is a full-time writer who was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He studied in London and Bradford, gaining degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs, including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Prologue	1
The Gathering Storm	10
Preparations for Departure	26
The Spacelike Horizon	41
The Admiral's Man	66
Wolf Depository Incident	93
Telegram from the Dead	122
A Semiotic War	147
Confessions	159
Diplomatic Behavior	178
Invitation to an Execution	192
Circus of Death	213
Bouncers	226
Jokers	239
The Telephone Repairman	263
Delivery Service	279
Epilogue	307

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