SummaryFrom the acclaimed author of Fine Prey, Polymorph, and
Evolution's Darling (Philip K. Dick Award special citation
and a New York Times Notable Book) comes a sweeping epic,
The Risen Empire, Scott Westerfeld's dazzling hardcover
debut.The undead Emperor has 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 can 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, and they each will hold the fate of the empire
in their hands. The Risen Empire is the first great space
opera of the twenty-first century.
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