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Spin State

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Overview

From a stunning new voice in hard science fiction comes the thrilling story of one woman's quest to wrest truth from chaos, love from violence, and reality from illusion in a post-human universe of emergent AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware...SPIN STATEUN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li has made thirty-seven faster-than-light jumps in her lifetime-and has probably forgotten more than most people remember. But that's what backup hard drives are for. And Li should know; she's been hacking her memory for fifteen years in order to pass as human. But no memory upgrade can prepare Li for what she finds on Compson's World: a mining colony she once called home and to which she is sent after a botched raid puts her on the bad side of the powers that be. A dead physicist who just happens to be her cloned twin.

Editorial Reviews

When a prominent theoretical physicist perishes in a mine fire on Compson's World, the UN Peacekeepers dispatch Maj. Catherine Li to retrieve a set of missing data critical to the next step in interstellar travel. In a universe populated by artificial intelligences, genetic constructs, clones, and other forms of enhanced intelligent life, Li has spent most of her time passing for the human she once was-after numerous upgrades to her mind erased much of her early life. Now she must confront her past in a world of black-market technology and interstellar intrigue. Moriarty's debut novel combines a vivid future world of high technology and low politics with sharply drawn characters and a taut storyline. A solid addition to most collections, especially where hard sf is popular. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Chris Moriarty

Chris Moriarty was born in 1968 and has lived in the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. A resident of Utah since 1994, Chris has trained horses for cattle ranches and hunting operations, and worked as a ranch hand, backcountry guide, freelance editor and environmental lawyer.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Spectra

Filesize

1.14 MB

Number of Pages

640

eBook ISBN

9780553898262

Awards

  • Gaylactic Spectrum Awards
  • Philip K. Dick Award

Excerpt from: Spin State by Chris Moriarty

ENTANGLEMENT

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not play at dice.

-- Albert Einstein

God may not play at dice, but She certainly knows how to count cards.

-- Hannah Sharifi

They cold-shipped her out, flash-frozen, body still bruised from last-minute upgrades.

Later she remembered only pieces of the raid. The touch of a hand. The crack of rifle fire. A face flashing bright as a fish's rise in dark water. And what she did remember she couldn't talk about, or the psychtechs would know she'd been hacking her own memory.

But that was later. After the court-martial. After jump fade and the rehab tanks had stolen it from her. Before that the memory was still crisp and clear and unedited. Still hers.

After all, she'd been there.

Li knew Metz was going to be big as soon as she met the liaison officer TechComm sent out to brief her squad. Twenty minutes after Captain C. Xavier Soza, UNSC, hit planet surface he'd gone into anaphylactic shock, and she was signing him into the on-base ER and querying her oracle for his next-of-kin list.

Allergies went with the uniform, of course. Terraforming was just a benign form of biological warfare; anyone who had to eat, breathe, or move in the Trusteeships got caught in the crossfire sometime. Still, no normal posthuman was that fragile. This time TechComm had sent out a genuine unadapted Ring-bred human. And clever young humans didn't get cold-shipped to the Periphery, didn't risk decoherence and respiratory failure unless they'd been sent out to do something that counted. Something the brass wouldn't trust to the AIs and colonials.

Soza spent thirty hours in the tanks before he recovered enough to give them their briefing. He seemed alert when he finally showed up, but he was still short of breath, and he had the worst case of hives Li had ever seen.

"Major," he said. "Sorry you had to deal with that little crisis. Not how I imagined my first meeting with the hero of Gilead."

Li flinched. Was she never going to enter a room without her reputation walking two steps in front of her?