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,
Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged
posthuman from Spearpoint's 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 Spearpoint's base, starting an
exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far
more at stake than just Quillon's 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 …
Author Biography
Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at
Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He lived in
the Netherlands whilst working as an astrophysicist for the European Space
Agency, but is now a full-time writer living in South Wales.
