Terminal World

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains ...

Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillons world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoints Celestial Levels - and with the dying body comes bad news.

If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoints base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillons own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police, but by the very nature of reality - and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability . . .

Praise for Alastair Reynolds:

The span here is mind-boggling, cosmos-spanning concepts, a breath-taking journeyGood Book Guide on Chasm City

[A] wonderfully entertaining puzzle wrapped inside an adventure storyThe Guardian on Eversion

A fabulous and satisfying novelSF Crowsnest on Revenger

An excellent adventure thats sure to keep readers on their toesPublishers Weekly on Revenger

A fun, character focused bottle mystery that shifts settings like a chameleon walking across a rainbow carpetThe Quill to Live on Eversion

Entertaining and thought-provokingLocus on Revelation Space

Pirates in space, full of peril and high-jinks . . . This is a novel thats elegantly plotted, full of surprises and, as first time round, rip-roaring funSFX on Revenger

Reynolds is one of the modern masters of science fictionStarburst

This is a story to break hearts and make you turn pages. Its great stuff; pick it up, youll want to know what happens nextSF&F Reviews on Century Rain

Much of the fun of these books comes from the construction of a far, far-future space-opera . . . the mapping of Age of Sail tropes onto space travel is just the start . . . Nevertheless, at the centre of this baroque masquerade party resides a sober consideration of what it might mean to go off adventuring, what it might costLocus on Revenger

Reynolds is a master singer of the Space OperaThe Times