SOJALS rating:

Good (3/5)

I first read this on the 25th December 2005.

Thousands of years in the future the Chinese Emperor Chuang Tzu rules over the 148 billion people on his 2023 worlds. He's been having something of a crisis of confidence recently. There's an assassin filled with murderous intent on his way to kill the Emperor, and as far as Chuang Tzu is concerned, that's fine by him.

Meanwhile back about now, Eugene Newman, President of the United States of America, has survived an attempted assassination and just wants to know why someone would try to kill him.

And back in the '70s, the children Moz and Malika are struggling, amid poverty and crime, to to survive to adulthood. Reclusive rock star Jake Razor may be their ticket out of the slums of Morocco.

There's a hint of Ken MacLeod in the mixed up times and places, and in the politics, but there's a heavier emotional weight, more suffering and pain, borne by the characters, as their personal struggles develop and unfold to shape the future of human civilisation across our Galaxy.

And of course, there's the ongoing reminder for ourselves and our leaders that human rights matter, and that poverty breeds crime and brutality.

And there's some fab writing giving the reader a brilliant vista of an astounding future.