Karl Schroeder Books

The Sunless Countries is the fourth novel in the Virga series of hard science fiction space opera adventures In an ocean of weightless air where sunlight has never been seen, only the running lights of the city of Pacquaea glitter in the dark. One woman, Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, lives and dreams of love among the gaslit streets and cafés. And somewhere in the abyss of wind and twisted cloud through which Pacquaea eternally falls, a great voice has begun speaking. As its cold words reach from space to the city walls—and as outlying towns and travelers' ships start to mysteriously disappear—only Leal has the courage to try to understand the message thundering from the distance. Even the city's most famous and exotic visitor, the sun lighter and hero named Hayden Griffin, refuses to turn aside from his commission to build a new sun for a foreign nation. He will not become the hero that Leal knows the city needs; so it is up to her to listen, and ultimately reply, to the voice of the worldwasp—because an astonishing disaster threatens Virga.

Virga is a world of endless sky, devoid of land and gravity. In "Sun of Suns," readers meet its resilient inhabitants and face the looming threat of Artificial Nature that exists beyond their world.

Set in the unique bubble universe of Virga, this novel continues the exploration of its intricate world, blending science fiction with themes of survival and power dynamics. Readers will encounter familiar elements from previous works, such as the interplay of light and gravity, while delving deeper into the lives of its inhabitants. The narrative promises to expand on the political and social structures that define this captivating universe, offering both thrilling adventure and thought-provoking concepts.

Set in a distant future, the narrative unfolds in Virga, a massive fullerene balloon where humans inhabit a unique environment filled with air, water, and floating rock formations. To survive, they construct their own fusion suns and create towns designed as enormous wheels, generating centripetal gravity through rotation. This imaginative setting explores the challenges and innovations of life in a self-contained, artificial world.

Young Rue Cassels of the Cycler Compact -- a civilization based around remote brown dwarf stars -- is running from her bullying brother, who has threatened to sell her into slavery. Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching object, and stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship.Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact.This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.

Venera Fanning stürzt in den freien Fall auf eine Asteroidenwelt und hat ihre Familie verloren. In der gigantischen Sphäre Virga, die von Tausenden Sonnen umgeben ist, muss sie sich auf der Welt Spyre durchschlagen, was sich als herausfordernd erweist.

In einer gigantischen Sphäre im Weltall haben Menschen künstliche Sonnen und Gravitationsfelder geschaffen. Der junge Hayden Griffin, dessen Eltern bei einer Strafexpedition getötet wurden, begibt sich auf eine abenteuerliche Reise, um Rache zu üben und wird dabei für immer verändert.