Saul fought to hold back the great swell of emotion that threatened to swallow him up. Kayes had already offered him a chance at a better life than anything Main Settlement could possibly offer him, and he had accepted the offer. Erkrnwald would wail and protest, but that would make no difference. He would be returning to the mainland alone, and damn the Revolutionary Council.
‘Yes,’ said Saul. ‘For good, this time.’
Angel Stations
Against Gravity
The Shoal Sequence
Stealing Light
Nova War
Empire of Light
Acknowledgements
Inspiration for this book originally came from two sources. The first is Kip Thorne’s ‘Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy’, where he speculates that one end of a wormhole, if accelerated to relativistic speeds, might allow for a form of time travel. The second is a piece written by Ray Kurzweil for edge.org, concerning the idea of transmitting information at greater than light speed.
Considerable thanks are owed to Phil Raines and Jim Campbell for ideas, suggestions and comments while I worked on an earlier draft of this book. Much gratitude is also extended to Ian Sales, whose detailed comments and suggestions helped keep me from falling on my face more often than I might have when it came to many of the finer technical details in the second half of the book. Any errors that remain are the responsibility of the author alone.
I should also say a debt of thanks to the staff at Tor past and present, particularly Julie Crisp and Peter Lavery, whose careful attention to detail and copious notes went a long way to making this book what it is.
First published 2011 by Tor
This electronic edition published 2011 by Tor
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Copyright © Gary Gibson 2011
The right of Gary Gibson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
