Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard presents yet another innovative space opera that broadens the definition of the genre: this time bringing xianxia-style martial arts to the stars.
Using the power of Shadows generated from their own bodies' vitality, Navigators guide space ships safely across the Hollows: a realm of unreality populated by unfathomable, dangerous creatures called Tanglers. In return for their service, the navigator clans get wealth and power-but they get the blame, too. So when a Tangler escapes the Hollows and goes missing, the empire calls on the jockeying clans to take responsibility and deal with the problem.
Vi t Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is rather unfortunate because, as a junior apprentice in the Rooster clan, when her elders send her on a joint-clan mission to locate the first escaped Tangler in living memory, she can't exactly say no.
H c Cúc of the Snake clan usually likes people. It says so on her resume: "information gathering"-right after "poisoning" and "stabbing." So she's pretty sure she's got the measure of this group: they're the screw-ups, the spares; there isn't a single sharp tool in this shed.
But when their imperial envoy is found dead by clan poison, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together-fast-before they end up cooling their heels in a jail cell while the invisible Tangler wreaks havoc on a civilian city and the reputation of all four clans.
