SFRevu Review

Links: Review by Tom Easton / Show Article /

In the third, but by no means final, book in Karl Schroeder's Virga saga set in a zero gee bubble of gas and heated by an artificial sun, Admiral Chaison Fanning, imprisoned by the country he attacked to stop a strike against his own, breaks out and takes it on the lam with a girl straight out of anime. Schroeder mixes action, character, and political thought with creativity and aplomb, providing more than a good read for everyone from Hornblower fans to readers of the Economist, not that these are mutually exclusive, of course.

Note: This review goes fairly far into the story, but we don't think it spoils the plot.

Return to Virga, a bubble universe artificially separated from our own future universe, and the setting of Sun of Suns and Queen of Candesce.

Chaison Fanning, the admiral of a fleet of warships, has been captured and imprisoned by his enemies, but is suddenly rescued and set free. He flees through the sky to his home city to confront the ruler who betrayed him. And perhaps even to regain his lovely, powerful, and subversive wife, Venera, who he has not seen since she fled with the key to the artificial sun at the center of Virga, Candesce.

Schroeder sets a whole new standard for hard SF space opera.