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"Riveting." --Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award winning author of ECHO. Back cover: Humankind rushes toward self-destruction, and must evolve or die. Our perspective: a scientist exploring an alien artifact on Triton, a teen-aged hacker in a city gone mad, three actors manipulated into igniting interplanetary war, the de-facto ruler of half the solar system, a soldier fighting in Africa to entertain his audience, an artificial intelligence facing personal crisis, and a cast of billions. Brilliant. --Algis Budrys, Pilgrim and Solstice award-winning author of Who? and Rogue Moon. A gorgeous cyberpunk/space opera/coming-of-age/new-wave philosophical action novel. --Kij Johnson, Nebula and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Fox Woman and Fudoki. This is the kind of book our genre needs more of. --George Zebrowski, Campbell Award-winning author of Brute Orbits. This may be the new New Space Opera - contemporary realities meet future possibilities. --James Gunn, Damon Knight Grand Master and Hugo and Pilgrim award- winning author of The Road to Science Fiction and The Listeners. Inside flap: A wild ride through a hypertech world. Riveting. —Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award winning author of Echo Beautiful, moving, and ambitious. —Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Philip K. Dick Award nominee and author of the Typhon series. In the not-too-distant future, humanity has colonized the solar system. People present themselves virtually, sometimes several layers deep, and it's often hard to tell who is real. Battles raging in trans-Neptunian space and on Earth are broadcast for the entertainment of millions. The audience is unaware if the characters are intheflesh or virtual. An orbiting EarthCo-owned supercomputer called the Brain becomes sentient while the tycoon who created it spins plans to take over the solar system. A lone scientist explores an alien artifact on Neptune's moon Triton, aware that squabbles between rival corporations not only interfere with the broadcast battle, but threaten to destroy him, the artifact, and potentially all of humankind. This is how life as we know it ends... and something new begins.