Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight

These 14 deeply culture-bound tales, set in the universes of de Bodard’s Xuya and Dominion of the Fallen series, evoke heartbreak from sacrifice, the price of peace, and memories lost. “The Shipmaker” and “The Waiting Stars” tell of mindships that are implanted with human-birthed artificial intelligences that teeter on the line between humanity and technology. In “A Salvaging of Ghosts” and “The Dust Queen,” priceless treasured memories are retrieved at the cost of life and reality. The reader also gets a taste of the dark alternative world in the two Dominion of the Fallen prequel stories, “Children of Thorns, Children of Water” and “Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness,” in which power and betrayal often go hand in hand. Fans of artificial intelligence will be enchanted by the Xuya stories, while those partial to fantasy with fallen angels will devour the bonus peek into characters of the Fallen. Readers prepared for melancholy and heartbreak will find them finely crafted here. Agent: John Berlyne, Zeno Literary Agency. (Oct.)