Brash and idealistic, they were rebels without a cause in a world governed by science, reason...and immortality. Banished for their troubles to the starship Newhope, they now face a bold future: to settle the worlds of Barnard's Star. Now King Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui, former prince of the Queendom of Sol, together with Captain Xiomara ...Xmary... Li Weng and her lover, first mate Conrad Mursk, face a perilous voyage with thousands of their fellow exiles. The journey will last a century, but with Queendom technology it's no problem to step into a fax machine and ...print... a fresh, youthful version of yourself. But what this crew of rebels will find is far from the paradise they seek. Before long, their optimistic young colony has started to show signs of strain. And worst of all, death itself has returned with a vengeance.
Far future monarchy is one of the hoariest cliches of science fantasy, but McCarthy does a creditable job in making it believable in a hard SF context among a high-tech society of immortals. -- D. Douglas Fratz, Scifi.com
Will McCarthy has written a fascinating Book about a future the audience hopes will never come true. -- Harriet Klausner, BooksNBytes
McCarthy does a terrific job with the story both by creating characters that engage the reader and by the creation of extremely well conceived future technology. -- Ernest Lilley, SFRevu