Empire Games - by Charles Stross (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Hugo Award-winning author Charlie Stross hits the ground running with Empire Games, provocative techno-thriller and fresh storyline in the Merchant Princes universe.

It's 2020. Two nuclear superpowers across timelines, one in the midst of a technological revolution and the other a hyper-police state, are set on a collision course. Each timeline's increasingly desperate paratime espionage agencies are fumbling around in the dark, trying to find a solution to the first-contact problem that doesn't result in a nuclear holocaust.

And two paratime travellers, Ministry of Intertemporal Research and Intelligence Commissioner Miriam Burgeson and newly minted spy Rita Douglas--a mother and her long-lost, adopted daughter--are about to find themselves on opposite sides of the confrontation.

Review Quotes

Praise for Empire Games

"The keen eye and what-if imagination of Charles Stross fuel a fresh look at alternate worlds." --David Brin, author of Existence

"A well-written book, full of mystery and intrigue, with entire worlds at stake." --Michael Flynn

"If you like the spy novels of Ian Fleming, or Len Deighton, as I do, but also appreciate a genre twist, then you'll love Empire Games. It is intelligent, entertaining and yet also a little scary." --SFFWorld.com

Praise for The Merchant Princes Series

"Economic science fiction worth reading." --Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author

"Stross is not a writer who aims to leave his readers reassured: One can't tell which way he's going to go, nor whose side he's on. No one beats him at hypertech either." --The Wall Street Journal

"Absorbing." --Kirkus Reviews

"If imagination is the key to success for a writer, Charles Stross has it in spades." --The Times (London) on Charles Stross

About the Author

Charles Stross is the author of the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry series, and several stand-alone novels including Glasshouse, Accelerando, and Saturn's Children. Born in Leeds, England, in 1964, Stross studied in London and Bradford, earning degrees in pharmacy and computer science. Over the next decade and a half he worked as a pharmacist, a technical writer, a software engineer, and eventually as a prolific journalist covering the IT industry. His short fiction began attracting wide attention in the late 1990s; his first novel, Singularity Sky, appeared in 2003. He has subsequently won the Hugo Award twice. He lives with his wife in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a flat that is slightly older than the state of Texas.