Invisible Sun

Charles Stross

21 July 2022
9781447247623
400 pages

Synopsis

In this chillingly resonant dystopian adventure, two versions of America are locked in conflict. Invisible Sun concludes Charles Stross’s Empire Games trilogy.

Two twinned worlds are facing attack

The New American Commonwealth is caught in a deadly arms race with the USA, its parallel-world rival. And the USA’s technology is decades ahead. Yet the Commonweath might self-combust first – for its leader has just died, leaving a crippling power vacuum. Minister Miriam Burgeson must face allegations of treason without his support, in a power grab by her oldest adversary.

However, all factions soon confront a far greater danger . . . In their drive to explore other timelines, high-tech USA awakened an alien threat. This force destroyed humanity on one version of Earth. And if the two superpowers don’t take action, it will do the same to them.

Invisible Sun follows Empire Games and Dark State. This trilogy is set in the same dangerous parallel world as Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes sequence.

Stross’s ferociously imaginative world-building is on full display here . . . few other writers can match him for humour, creativity and sheer density of ideas
Sheer brilliance: when Stross is in this mood, nobody else comes close
High-octane thriller action, mixed in with personal drama and some fantastically sympathetic characters