In the Mouth of the Whale

'Few writers conjure futures as convincingly as McAuley' Guardian Humanity's future rests on the shoulders of a Child from the past, and she must never know of the battles being fought for her . . . In the system of Fomalhaut, a war is being fought. The Quicks came long ago, refugees from the Solar System. The True arrived later, to find a declining civilisation and a system ripe for the taking. Then the Ghosts appeared, no longer human, unknowable, powerful and determined to drive out the Quick and the True. The battle continues, but the outcome is uncertain. In a damaged and perilous Brazil, The Child lives with her mother and nursemaid, kept safe from the risks of the rainforest. Isak and the Horse, in endless Hells as punishment for a failure they will never live down, receive a summons. A mission has been found for them, one which will lead them into the most deadly Hell of all. On the skin of the Whale, suspended far above the planet Cthuga's surface, the Quick slaves have no freedom of their own. Ori dreams of flight, but there is no escape from her slavery - until the Ghosts attack the Whale. These three lives will intersect, because there is something at the centre of Cthuga, something dangerous and growing and powerful. Something that is worth fighting for. And it will change everybody's life. 'Paul McAuley's balanced grasp of satire and literature, always a rare attribute in the writer of prose fiction, is combined with the equally rare ability to look at today's problems and know which are really problems, and what can be done about them' William Gibson978 0 575 10075 6 £8.99