Release date: December 10, 2018
Subgenre: Mythic space opera
About Finders:
Cassilde Sam is a barely solvent salvage operator, hunting for relics in
the ruins left by the mysterious Ancestors—particularly the color-coded
Elements that power most of humanity’s current technology, including
the ability to navigate through hyperspace. Cassilde is also steadily
fading under the onslaught of Lightman’s, an incurable, inevitably fatal
disease. She needs one last find big enough to leave a legacy for her
partner and fellow salvor Dai Winter.
When their lover and former colleague Summerlad Ashe reappears, offering them a chance to salvage part of an orbiting palace that he claims contains potentially immense riches, Cassilde is desperate enough to take the gamble, even though Ashe had left them both to fight on the opposite side of the interplanetary war that only ended seven years ago. The find is everything Ashe promised. But when pirates attack the claim, Cassilde receives the rarest of the Ancestors’ Gifts: a change to her biochemistry that confers near-instant healing and seems to promise immortality.
But the change also drags her into an underworld where Gifts are traded in blood, and powerful Gifts bring equally powerful enemies. Hunted for her Gift and determined to find Gifts for her lovers, Cassilde discovers that an old enemy is searching for the greatest of the Ancestral artifacts: the power that the Ancestors created and were able to barely contain after it almost destroyed them, plunging humanity into the first Long Dark. Haunted by dream-visions of this power whispering its own version of what happened, Cassilde must find it first, before her enemy frees it to destroy her own civilization.
When their lover and former colleague Summerlad Ashe reappears, offering them a chance to salvage part of an orbiting palace that he claims contains potentially immense riches, Cassilde is desperate enough to take the gamble, even though Ashe had left them both to fight on the opposite side of the interplanetary war that only ended seven years ago. The find is everything Ashe promised. But when pirates attack the claim, Cassilde receives the rarest of the Ancestors’ Gifts: a change to her biochemistry that confers near-instant healing and seems to promise immortality.
But the change also drags her into an underworld where Gifts are traded in blood, and powerful Gifts bring equally powerful enemies. Hunted for her Gift and determined to find Gifts for her lovers, Cassilde discovers that an old enemy is searching for the greatest of the Ancestral artifacts: the power that the Ancestors created and were able to barely contain after it almost destroyed them, plunging humanity into the first Long Dark. Haunted by dream-visions of this power whispering its own version of what happened, Cassilde must find it first, before her enemy frees it to destroy her own civilization.
Excerpt:
Cassilde killed that hope—it was far too soon to speculate—and said, “Any sign of this lifesaving device?”
“In the alcove, I think,” Ashe answered. The work lights didn’t quite penetrate its depths; he was still using his handlight to examine the walls. “But I’m not seeing any actual device.”
“There’s things attached to the beds,” Dai began, and at that moment the lights flickered. Cassilde grabbed her remote, pinged the ship to demand its status. The codes flashed back in the proper sequence: power transmitters all green, ship’s systems green, nothing in the sensor web. She shook her head. “Nothing here.”
“I could head back and double-check,” Dai said, reluctantly.
Cassilde considered, weighing the difficulty of getting out again if they lost the transmission against the lost time and work. Minor glitches, skips in the field transmission, were rare, but not unheard of; usually it meant she’d failed to tune the transmissions properly to avoid all interference. The status reports all looked solid, though, and sometimes you never did find out what caused the problem. “You posted glow-dots, right?”
“Of course.” Dai sounded annoyed, and she gestured an apology.
“Sorry. Stay, I think. If it happens again, we’ll rethink it.”
“Better rethink it now.” The stranger’s voice came from the hatch.
“In the alcove, I think,” Ashe answered. The work lights didn’t quite penetrate its depths; he was still using his handlight to examine the walls. “But I’m not seeing any actual device.”
“There’s things attached to the beds,” Dai began, and at that moment the lights flickered. Cassilde grabbed her remote, pinged the ship to demand its status. The codes flashed back in the proper sequence: power transmitters all green, ship’s systems green, nothing in the sensor web. She shook her head. “Nothing here.”
“I could head back and double-check,” Dai said, reluctantly.
Cassilde considered, weighing the difficulty of getting out again if they lost the transmission against the lost time and work. Minor glitches, skips in the field transmission, were rare, but not unheard of; usually it meant she’d failed to tune the transmissions properly to avoid all interference. The status reports all looked solid, though, and sometimes you never did find out what caused the problem. “You posted glow-dots, right?”
“Of course.” Dai sounded annoyed, and she gestured an apology.
“Sorry. Stay, I think. If it happens again, we’ll rethink it.”
“Better rethink it now.” The stranger’s voice came from the hatch.
Easter eggs in Finders
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Candlemark & Gleam
About Melissa Scott:
Melissa Scott was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, studied history at Harvard, and published her first novel while earning her PhD from Brandeis in comparative history. She has published more than thirty original novels and a handful of short stories, most with queer themes and characters, as well as authorized tie-in novels for Star Trek, Stargate, and Star Wars Rebels. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, multiple Lambda Literary and Spectrum Awards, was shortlisted for the Tiptree Award and many of her short stories have been anthologized in Year’s Best.
No comments:
Post a Comment