Charles Stross

After being stalked across the galaxy by an assassin, post-human Krina Alzon-114 journeys to the water-world Shin-Tethys in search of her sister.

Neptune's brood

Gavin

Extended essay on the macroeconomics of space bitcoin and the Graeberian lightness of debt. Also dead good breakneck fun, as always. Protagonist is a historian of finance and a gentle soul in ravenous space capitalism. Set in the Saturn’s Children world, with perhaps too much in common with that book (a powerful, psychotic matriarch antagonist; economic pressure as main plot driver; a serially manipulated and unviolent lead; space travel is shit). But good.

Note: Stross devises a species of terrifying scavenger, the ‘Bezos worm’, which fall upon the wounded in vast packs, and incorporate prey into their intestinal lining, stealing their genetic essence to ease future cannibalism.

Neptune's Brood is a brand new space opera from science fiction legend Charles Stross. Shortlisted for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Hugo Award for Best Novel. She was looking for her sister. She found Atlantis. Krina Alizond is a metahuman in a universe where the last natural humans became extinct five thousand years ago. When her sister goes missing, she embarks on a daring voyage across the star systems to find her, travelling to her last known location - the mysterious water-world of Shin-Tethys. In a universe with no faster-than-light travel that's a dangerous journey, made all the more perilous by the arrival of an assassin on Krina's tail, by the 'privateers' chasing her sister's life insurance policy and by growing signs that the disappearance is linked to one of the biggest financial scams in the known universe.

Neptune's brood

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