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A high-tech, inter-dimensional espionage thriller set in the world of The Merchant Princes series.

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Dark State is the second book in the thrilling Empire Games series - set in the same world as Charles Stross´ The Merchant Princes series.

In the near future, the collision of two nuclear superpowers - in two different timelines - is imminent. One America is experiencing its first technological revolution, whilst a parallel United States is a hi-tech police state. But both are poised to wreak destruction.

In Miriam Burgeson´s America, internal politics are pulling the government apart. But if one of her agents secures a high-profile defection, civil war may be averted. Rita Douglas, rival US spy, arrives during this crisis. Her world is rocked when she realizes Miriam is her mother, who gave her up for adoption as a baby. But what impact will this have on the conflict?

Then the US discovers another timeline, and the remains of an advanced society. Something annihilated that civilization - and Rita´s people are about to rouse it.

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Sheer brilliance: when Stross is in this mood, nobody else comes close Kirkus (starred review)

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Stross, Charles
Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. He is the author of the popular Merchant Princes and Empire Games series, set in the same world. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages. Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

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