Succession #1
Tor
August 2004
On Sale: August 1, 2004
Featuring: Laurent Zai; Nara Oxham
352 pages ISBN: 076534467X EAN: 9780765344670 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
The undead Emperor ruled his mighty interstellar empire of
eighty human worlds for sixteen hundred years. Because he
can grant a form of eternal life, creating an elite known as
the Risen, his power has been absolute. He and his sister,
the Child Empress, who is eternally a little girl, are
worshiped as living gods. No one could touch them.
Not until the Rix, machine-augmented humans who
worship very different gods: AI compound minds of planetary
extent. The Rix are cool, relentless fanatics, and their
only goal is to propagate such AIs throughout the galaxy.
They seek to end, by any means necessary, the Emperor's
prolonged tyranny of one, and supplant it with an eternal
cybernetic dynasty of their own. They begin by taking the
Child Empress hostage. Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial
Frigate Lynx is tasked with her rescue.
Separated by
light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist
Senator Nara Oxham must each, in their own way, face the
challenge of the Rix, as they hold the fate of the empire in
their hands. The Risen Empire is the first great
space opera of the 21st century.