Description:
Early in the next century, the Interspace company, in charge of humanity's first-generation starship, has been given extraordinary powers. Cen, a descendant of Hawaiian shaman-priests and a mathematical genius, finds out as an adolescent how ruthless they are in their preparedness to exploit human weakness and brilliance, yet he sells his work to them to gain the leisure to pursue his own plans--the conquest of time and the saving of the long-dead princess whom he meets and loves in moments of vision. A decade later, Lynn, a geneticist renegade from Interspace's ruling dynasty, rescues from assassination Akamu, a clone of Hawaii's legendary unifier, and finds herself, like Cen before her, manipulated by Interspace's Hawaiian nationalist foes. She and Akamu are pursued from Hawaii to Hong Kong and into the uplands of Tibet. Bristling with intrigue and ideas about Buddhism, worm holes, celestial navigation, and quantum theories of intelligence, Goonan's new novel is touching on love and families and a grueling switchback ride for the intellect. Her first novel, Queen City Jazz, was impressive in its dreamy portrayal of a world altered by nano-technology; this radical change of place remakes the near-future techno-thriller as a set of passionately conceived ethical quandaries. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
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