The Spin Trilogy Series

Sometimes a ghost of a chance is all you get.

Award-winning author Chris Moriarty returns to a dazzling cyber-noir far future in this gritty, high-stakes thriller where the only rule is “Evolve . . . or die.”
 
The Age of Man is ending. The UN’s sprawling interstellar empire is failing as its quantum teleportation network collapses, turning once-viable colonies into doomed island outposts. Humanity’s only hope of survival is the Drift: a mysterious region of space where faster-than-light travel—or something far stranger—seems possible. As mercenaries and pirates flock to the Drift, the cold war between the human-led UN and the clone-dominated Syndicates heats up. Whoever controls the Drift will chart the future course of human evolution—and no one wants to be left behind in a universe where the price of failure is extinction.

When the AI called Cohen ventures into the Drift, he dies—allegedly by his own hand—and his consciousness is scattered across the cosmos. Some of his ghosts are still self-aware. Some are insane. And one of them hides a secret worth killing for. Enter Major Catherine Li, Cohen’s human (well, partly human) lover, who embarks on a desperate search to solve the mystery of Cohen’s death—and put him back together. But Li isn’t the only one interested in Cohen’s ghosts. Astrid Avery, a by-the-book UN navy captain, is on the hunt. So is William Llewellyn, a pirate who has one of the ghosts in his head, which is slowly eating him alive. Even the ghosts have their own agendas. And lurking behind them all is a pitiless enemy who will stop at nothing to make sure the dead don’t walk again.

Praise for Ghost Spin
 
“Complexity is the watchword here, of thought, idea, narrative, character and plot. . . . Highly rewarding.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Rewarding . . . The adaptations humans make to survive in the hostile environments of other worlds, a galaxy teetering on the edge of singularity . . . are genuinely visionary.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“This stand-along ‘spin-off’ offers a compelling tale of adventure/suspense blended with cybernoir and high-tech sf.”—Library Journal
 
“An excellent read: gripping, fast-paced, provocative and handsome.”—Tordotcom
 
“A brilliant mix of space opera, cyberpunk, and just plain great writing, Moriarty’s work is some of the most impressive in science fiction today.”—SFRevu

In this stunning follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel Spin State, Chris Moriarty depicts a grim future in which the final frontier may well be extinction. For as far-flung planets are terraformed and Earth’s age-old conflicts are contracted out to AIs, humanity is losing the only war that counts: the war for survival.

Call Arkady a clone with a conscience. Or call him a traitor. A member of the space-faring Syndicates, Arkady has defected to Israel with a hot commodity: a genetic weapon powerful enough to wipe out humanity. But Israel’s not buying it. They’re selling it—and Arkady—to the highest bidder.

As the auction heats up, the Artificial Life Emancipation Front sends in Major Catherine Li. Already drummed out of the Peacekeepers for “war crimes,” Li has now literally hooked up with an AI who has lived many lifetimes and shunted through many bodies. And while they each have their own definition of victory, together they have only one chance at survival. . . .

From a stunning new voice in hard science fiction comes the thrilling story of one woman’s quest to wrest truth from chaos, love from violence, and reality from illusion in a post-human universe of emergent AIs, genetic constructs, and illegal wetware. . . .

UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li has made thirty-seven faster-than-light jumps in her lifetime—and has probably forgotten more than most people remember. But that’s what backup hard drives are for. And Li should know; she’s been hacking her memory for fifteen years in order to pass as human. But no memory upgrade can prepare Li for what she finds on Compson’s World: a mining colony she once called home and to which she is sent after a botched raid puts her on the bad side of the powers that be. A dead physicist who just happens to be her cloned twin. A missing dataset that could change the interstellar balance of power and turn a cold war hot. And a mining “accident” that is starting to look more and more like murder. . . .

Suddenly Li is chasing a killer in an alien world miles underground where everyone has a secret. And one wrong turn in streamspace, one misstep in the dark alleys of blackmarket tech and interstellar espionage, one risky hookup with an AI could literally blow her mind.