<div>Scott Westerfeld, the acclaimed author of <i>Fine Prey, Polymorph, </i>and <i>Evolution's Darling</i>, reached new heights of excitement in <i>The Risen Empire</i>, and left readers begging for more. Now he comes through with the dazzling payoff in book two of Succession<i>, The Killing of Worlds.</i><br><br>Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial frigate <i>Lynx</i> is a walking dead man. Unjustly held responsible for the death of the Child Empress, sister of the immortal Emperor, Zai has been sent to fight an unwinnable battle. The <i>Lynx</i> must stop a vastly superior Rix ship from reaching the planet Legis, a suicide mission that will almost certainly end in oblivion for Captain Zai and his crew.<br><br>On the planet Legis below, a Rix compound mind--a massive emergent AI formed from every computer on the planet--as been isolated by their Imperial blockade. But the mind has guided a lone Rix commando, Herd, to the planet's frozen north, and will soon order a desperate attempt to seize a polar communications array and break the blockade. Herd is a single warrior against an Imperial army, but moving silently behind her is the intelligence of an entire planet.<br><br>Ten light-years away, Captain Zai's true love, the psychic (some say mad) Senator Nara Oxham is engaged in a deadly game of political intrigue. From her position on the Emperor's War Council, Senator Oxham must find a way to forestall the Emperor's final solution if the blockade is broken: a nuclear strike to destroy the compound mind, which will also kill millions of Imperial citizens. She suspects that the Emperor has a hidden weakness discovered, by the mind, a secret so dangerous to his immortal dynasty that to prevent its discovery the Emperor is willing to countenance the ultimate crime. . . . <br><br>The killing of worlds.<br><br>With this powerful conclusion to the first story arc of Succession, Scott Westerfeld confirms 0his stature as one of the leading writers of high space opera. <br></div>