He's lucky; he lives in one of the walled cities for the nation's elite, and life is pleasant. He expects to graduate and find employment in his uncle's company.Everything changes when he's framed for murder. He's tried, convicted, and sentenced to hard labor in the prison colony on Mercury.He ends up in Hesperus instead, a flying city that soars eternally through the acidic skies of Venus. His goal now is to find a way to clear his name and return to Earth before Hesperus erupts in civil war. He also must battle the harsh realities of the planet itself. Because if the Hesperans don't kill him, Venus probably will.

    For the first time in one volume: every word Bruce Sterling has ever written on the Shapers-Mechanists Universe.In the last decade, Sterling has emerged a pioneer of crucial, cutting-edge science fiction. Now Ace Books is proud to offer Sterling's stunning world of the Schismatrix--where Shaper revolutionaries struggle against aristocratic Mechanists for ultimate control of man's destiny. This volume includes the classic full-length novel, Schismatrix, plus thousands of words of mind-bending short fiction.

    A contemporary man, John Thornburn (a meek, non-violent and unpredictable artist) and woman, Derval (his tough, confrontational, strong and warrior-like lover) time travel to ancient Ireland to avenge a Viking attack. Packed with fascinating details of historical time and place in Irish history and delicately balanced on the border between realism and fantasy, the story centers around one of the most famous and beautiful illuminated manuscripts in history, the legendary but entirely real Book of Kells. Celtic history blends with magical fantasy for a strange and immersive tale of adventure.