In this grandly scaled space opera from bestseller Williams (Hardwired
), swashbuckling computer scientist Aristide explores pretechnological “pocket” universes in search of interesting “implied spaces,” the unintended regions that come into existence between deliberately designed structures. Then he uncovers evidence of a dark collective that’s kidnapping people and sending them to pockets where a virus co-opts their minds and turns them into willing spies and assassins. Evidence implicates one of the Eleven planet-sized quantum computers, somehow corrupted in spite of its “Asimovian safeguards.” Armed with a wormhole-edged broadsword and accompanied by his sidekick, Bitsy, an avatar of one of the Eleven in the form of a talking cat, Aristide finds himself hunted, brainwashed, killed and resurrected more than once before he learns the truth. Williams tells the tale with enthusiasm and a crisp, dry wit well suited to this entertaining blend of high adventure, intrigue and postsingularity technology. (July)
