Dark State
A Novel of the Merchant Princes Multiverse (Empire Games, Book II)
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4.4 • 33 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross dives deep into the underbelly of paratime espionage, nuclear warfare, and state surveillance in this provocative techno-thriller set in The Merchant Princes multi-verse
Dark State ups the ante on the already volatile situations laid out in the sleek techno-thriller Empire Games, the start to Stross' new story-line, and perfect entry point for new readers, in The Merchant Princes series.
In the near-future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers across timelines, one in the midst of a technological revolution and the other a hyper-police state, is imminent. In Commissioner Miriam Burgeson’s timeline, her top level agents run a high risk extraction of a major political player. Meanwhile, a sleeper cell activated in Rita's, the Commissioner's adopted daughter and newly-minted spy, timeline threatens to unravel everything.
With a penchant for intricate world-building and an uncanny ability to realize alternate history and technological speculation, Stross' writing will captivate any reader who's a fan hi-tech thrillers, inter-dimensional political intrigue, and espionage.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Stross's middling second Empire Games novel (after Empire Games), plots don't just thicken; they proliferate and snarl in each other like weeds. In the year 2020 in Timeline Two, a world somewhat like ours, U.S. spies have recruited Rita Douglas, the estranged daughter of intertemporal spy extraordinaire Miriam Burgeson. Having failed to infiltrate Timeline Three's North American Commonwealth (which only freed itself from the British monarchy in 2003), Rita returns to the unfriendly embrace of her handlers with a message from Miriam: open diplomatic relations between the timelines, or face another war. But the Commonwealth has its own problems the head of its government is terminally ill, and his death will trigger the country's first succession crisis. Hoping to solidify their position against other factions, the worldwalkers who move between timelines hope to pull off a diplomatic coup: helping Princess Elizabeth Hanover defect from Britain to the Commonwealth. When these plans go awry, Rita is pulled even deeper into the machinations of two timelines, trying to prevent a war that threatens to consume them all. Stross writes with passion and ease about both human and technological spycraft, and his characters remain intriguing and sympathetic. The story, however, feels like a placeholder for the next book, and finishes with an unsatisfying cliff-hanger.
