When the Presger empire demands a treaty meeting, three strangers find their lives intertwined by the mystery of a missing diplomat. Eiotan is a shapeshifting biological weapon designed to impersonate a human. Reevan is an administrative clerk who discovers her family history is a lie. Qven is a juvenile Prediger offspring facing a violent maturation process. Forced together on a remote space station, they must navigate the rigid bureaucracies of the Radch and the deadly appetites of the Presger Translators while negotiating their own anatomical and legal identities.
Science fiction readers who value intricate world-building and non-binary social structures will find this a detailed expansion of the Imperial Radch universe. It is for those interested in the mechanics of diplomacy and the tension between genetic heritage and personal choice. Readers walk away with a specific perspective on how institutional categories fail individuals and how autonomy is established through collective action rather than solitary defiance.
- Published
- 2023
- Language
- EN
