Permanence

Young Rue Cassels of the Cycler Compact -- a civilization based around remote brown dwarf stars -- is running for her life from her bullying brother, Jentry, who has stolen her family inheritance and threatens to sell her into slavery. Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching object, and stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship. Since the discovery of a faster-than-light drive, unfortunately operable only between larger stars, the Cycler Compact civilization has gradually dwindled. It's much cheaper for the star-based civilizations of the new Rights Economy to bypass the stops that can't be made with the new technology, and the civilizations of the brown stars are gradually sinking into anarchy and chaos. It has been decades since the last Cycler ship passed anywhere near the system in which Rue grew up. Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize-and perhaps control--the Compact. This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the rebirth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. **

After his well-received first SF novel, Ventus (2000), Canadian Schroeder offers a complex, conceptually satisfying story of interstellar intrigue, cosmology, theology and nanotechnology. The scattered members of the book's far-future intergalactic culture inhabit either space stations (aka "halo" communities) around brown dwarf stars that are supplied by Cycler craft on prescribed, intergalactic routes or "lit" planets with fusion-based suns that are linked by faster-than-light ships. Meadow-Rue Rosebud Cassels, a young woman living on the space station Allemagne and eager to escape her violent half-brother, discovers an alien artifact once possessed by a succession of militaristic individuals, both human and alien. Rue's artifact, apparently a new Cycler, ignites a struggle for money and power that alternately switches her from outcast to important property owner. As Rue masters political infighting and battle tactics, she picks up such loyal followers as Michael, a mystic and anthropologist, and Max, her resourceful cousin. Amid all the fast-paced space adventure, some readers may wish for clearer details to help guide them from one scene to the next. The narrative fairly bursts with interesting ideas, like the religion of Neo-Shintoism and the philosophy of Permanence, but the result too often resembles digressions that belong in an anthropology study, not a novel. In truth, the author packs in enough material for several volumes. Yet Schroeder knows how to entertain and should continue to build an audience across a broad range of SF fans.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Adult/High School-In this future, humans have long-since mastered the art of surviving in alien environments but have become divided. Pioneer Halo Worlders settled brown dwarfs between the visible stars, and adapted with daring, art, and creativity. But when faster-than-light travel was discovered, the richer, more monolithic Rights Economy claimed the Earth-like planets of the "lit" stars; that society's overriding principle has been ownership-of everything. The human need for enlightenment expresses itself through Permanence, a non-metaphysical religious order seeking the eternal survival of our species. In a beginning reminiscent of classic Heinlein, scrappy young Rue daringly escapes from a bad situation and heads for her home in Halo World; she happens upon an alien artifact that promises to make her rich but instead lands her in a galactic crisis and she must find her sea legs fast. Meanwhile, in a Rights Economy project, Michael, a monk in the outlawed NeoShinto order, is assisting in a scientific study of extinct alien civilizations as he covertly collects their kami, or essence. Rue, Michael, and a large cast of equally colorful characters must determine the correct use of mysterious alien technology and then fight like the dickens if their species is to survive. This suspenseful, complex tale asks many intriguing questions and illustrates more scientific principles than a semester of science labs. Some readers might not quite follow all of the rapid twists and turns, but they will want to hang on to reach the story's satisfying conclusion, where a thoughtful solution emerges amid plenty of fireworks.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.