The January Dancer

"An epic tale. . . . evokes old-school space opera . . . but cutting-edge extrapolation breathes vivid life into this universe of scoundrels, heroes and romantics." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Hugo Award finalist and Robert A. Heinlein Award–winning sci-fi writer Michael Flynn now turns to space opera with stunningly successful results. Full of rich echoes of space opera classics, The January Dancer tells the fateful story of an ancient pre-human artifact of great power, and the people who found it.


Starting with Captain Amos January, who quickly loses it, and then the others who fought, schemed, and killed to get it, we travel around the complex, decadent, brawling, mongrelized interstellar human civilization the artifact might save or destroy. Collectors want the Dancer, pirates take it, rulers crave it, and they'll all kill if necessary to get it. This is a thrilling yarn of love, revolution, music, and mystery, and it ends, as all great stories do, with shock and a beginning.


"Flynn puts his world-building skills to good use, creating a context that begs to be further explored." —Booklist