"Loaded with exciting action"

The Emperor has ruled over the eighty planets of the Risen Empire for over fifteen centuries. When it is time the emperor kills himself in a sacrificial way so he can return being one of the few chosen for immortality. Only the ultra wealthy or the highest nobles can access this immortality technique.

Though much of the populace resents the hierarchy they react as sheep. However, for the first time in centuries a threat has surfaced. The Rix believes society needs to evolve into an artificial intelligence of one mind. They have captured the Emperor's sister, The Empress Child, and are in the process of terraforming a planet to suit their philosophy. A rescue mission led by Imperial Navy Captain Laurent Zai tries a desperate rescue attempt before the orb is bombed into oblivion, the only way to stop the Rix incursion.

When the space opera remains in the present, the story line is loaded with exciting action that grips the audience who wants to come along for the full ride. When flashbacks occur, the plot slows down as a sidebar that typically provides societal background surfaces but also takes away from the rescue effort. Fans who want mind boggling action will resent the flashbacks as intrusions while those who want to understand alien worlds and ways of life will appreciate these as delightful erudition.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted March 9, 2003

Summary

From the acclaimed author of Fine Prey, Polymorph, and Evolution's Darling (Philip K. Dick Award special citation and a New York Times Notable Book) comes a sweeping epic, The Risen Empire, Scott Westerfeld's dazzling hardcover debut.The undead Emperor has ruled his mighty interstellar empire of eighty human worlds for sixteen hundred years. Because he can grant a form of eternal life, creating an elite known as the Risen, his power has been absolute. He and his sister, the Child Empress, who is eternally a little girl, are worshiped as living gods. No one can touch them. Not until the Rix, machine-augmented humans who worship very different gods: AI compound minds of planetary extent. The Rix are cool, relentless fanatics, and their only goal is to propagate such AIs throughout the galaxy. They seek to end, by any means necessary, the Emperor's prolonged tyranny of one and supplant it with an eternal cybernetic dynasty of their own. They begin by taking the Child Empress hostage. Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate Lynx is tasked with her rescue.Separated by light- years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist senator Nara Oxham must each in their own way, face the challenge of the Rix, and they each will hold the fate of the empire in their hands. The Risen Empire is the first great space opera of the twenty-first century.