I wanted a far future in which I could tell any story, and it grew organically without much in the way of a plan bar this. The Polity started out in short stories in the small presses. Skaidon’s technology, whose naming template is based on the poems of Edward Lear, gives the nascent Polity the runcible: gateways for instantaneous travel between worlds. During a renaissance, the second wave of humanity, guided by the AIs, spreads out into the galaxy (quite often running into that first wave). Shortly after this, the AIs take over in a relatively bloodless coup known as the Quiet War. Many groups head out to the galaxy, usually in cryogenic storage in their ships, to set up numerous colonies. The invention of this faster-than-light travel results in a diaspora from the Solar System. During this time Iverus Skaidon, a scientist, directly links his mind to the AI Craystein Computer and invents underspace travel, just before his mind blows like a fuse. However, these separate political entities – polities – employ AI for gain. In the early years of space travel, as we spread out into the solar system, the political make-up of humanity is a mixture of national and world (or moon) governments, and large corporations. For the wilderness of Masada lacks breathable air.and out there roam monstrous predators called hooders and siluroynes, not to mention the weird and terrible gabbleducks.The Polity is a far-future society run by artificial intelligences.

Sent out on a titanic Polity dreadnought, the Occam Razor, agent Cormac must investigate the disaster, and also resolve the question of Masada, a world about to be subsumed as the Line of Polity is drawn across it.But the rogue biophysicist Skellor has not yet been captured, and he now controls something so potent that Polity AIs will hunt him down forever to prevent him using it.Meanwhile on Masada, the long-term rebellion can never rise above-ground, as the slave population is subjugated by orbital laser arrays controlled by the Theocracy in their cylinder worlds, and by the fact that they cannot safely leave their labour compounds. should its horrifying wildlife allow you.Outlink station Miranda has been destroyed by a nanomycelium, and the very nature of this sabotage suggests that the alien bioconstruct Dragon - a creature as untrustworthy as it is gigantic - is somehow involved. Come visit a world where you cannot draw breath.

Neal asher polity