The Scarab Mission
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A scavenger and her oddball crew are catapulted into the midst of a strange secret at the heart of a derelict colony ship among the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium in a new novel of explosive SF from James L. Cambias.
Solana Sina is a scarab, salvaging wrecked and abandoned space habitats among the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium. She and an oddball crew—a raven, a cyborg, and a dinosaur—board the derelict colony Safdaghar hoping to score some loot before the colony gets catapulted into the outer reaches of the Solar System. But Solana and the scarabs come face-to-face with a gang of vicious pirates looking for slaves and treasure, and a mysterious stranger intent on preserving an explosive secret. Solana must overcome her own horrifying past to survive and escape before it’s too late. But there’s an even more dangerous threat lurking in the dark passages and ruined buildings of Safdaghar . . .
At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
About The Godel Operation:
“With this freewheeling story of an ancient, cunning artificial intelligence and its naïve human companion, Cambias (The Initiate) mashes humor, mystery, and looming apocalypse into a roundly satisfying space epic. —Publishers Weekly
Praise for Arkad’s World:
“Cambias has achieved a feat of world-building: an expansive, believable setting with fascinating aliens, compelling mysteries, and a rich sense of history.” —Bookpage
Praise for the work of James L. Cambias:
“Beautifully written, with a story that captures the imagination the way SF should.” —Booklist starred review
James L. Cambias is a writer, a game designer, and the cofounder of Zygote Games. He has been nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He lives in western Massachusetts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cambias expertly combines confident worldbuilding, high stakes action, and suspenseful mystery in his second Billion Worlds space adventure (after The Godel Operation). Safdaghar, one of the billion space habitats orbiting Earth's sun in the 10th Millennium, is in dangerous disrepair after 16 years of no contact with the outside world. The promise of riches—especially the valuable lost work of a Martian poet believed to be hidden in the habitat—lures a scrappy salvage crew comprising Solana, a woman with a mysterious aversion to seeing the faces of other humans; Atmin, a genetically engineered raven; Pera, a dino from the rings of Venus; and Utsoro, a cyborg. The salvage mission proves even more hazardous than expected when the team arrives on Safdaghar to find all of its former residents slaughtered. Now they must identify who or what killed the Safdagharians—and survive encountering it themselves. Cambias's unconventional underdogs will win readers over, and the inevitable affection for the characters makes the climax all the more powerful. Fans of the cult TV series Firefly will have a blast.
