Interesting sci-fi concept.
This book moves rather slowly at first, but the author is introducing a complicated universe. Mankind has been out among the stars for centuries and has split into nearly separate species, generally at odds with one another.
At least one of the human subsets is as tied up in red tape as anything present-day; officials exist merely to frustrate anyone trying to change the system or get ahead.
And if you think you have a dysfunctional family, think again. I doubt your relatives have tried to sell you off as a slave; Rue Cassels' brother does just that.
But Rue keeps fighting...
From back cover:
Young Rue Cassels of the Cycler Compact- a civilization based around remote brown dwarf stars -- is running from her bullying brother, who has threatened to sell her into slavery. Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching objectand stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship.
Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact.
This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.
At least one of the human subsets is as tied up in red tape as anything present-day; officials exist merely to frustrate anyone trying to change the system or get ahead.
And if you think you have a dysfunctional family, think again. I doubt your relatives have tried to sell you off as a slave; Rue Cassels' brother does just that.
But Rue keeps fighting...
From back cover:
Young Rue Cassels of the Cycler Compact- a civilization based around remote brown dwarf stars -- is running from her bullying brother, who has threatened to sell her into slavery. Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching objectand stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship.
Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact.
This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.
