Newly ascended to the Ildiran throne, Mage-Imperator Jora...h must quash the rebellion launched by his mad brother before the hydrogues destroy what is left of the empire. Assailed from all sides, Jora...h turns to his beloved half-human daughter, dispatching her on a desperate mission to make peace with the hydrogues.
Hope for humanity now rests with Jess Tamblyn, who continues to seed worlds with the watery wentals, the mortal enemies of the hydrogues. And on the ravaged planet of Theroc, home to a telepathic worldforest, a dead man is resurrected to prepare for the arrival of mysterious new allies in the fight.
But Chairman Basil Wenceslas's vendetta against the free-spirited Roamers has blinded him to danger closer to home - the soldier machines that make up the backbone of the Hansa fighting force. King Peter has long suspected that the compies, built with the help of the ancient Klikiss robots, cannot be trusted. Now the shocking proof comes when the Klikiss launch their long-planned extermination of all things flesh and blood. And in the ensuing battle, humans and Ildirans alike will face their darkest choices yet...
As the official Dune prequelizer, Anderson has internalized the Herbert formula into his marrow, and he replicates it here with just enough mutations to refresh it and render the formula his own. -- Paul Di Filippo, Scifi.com
A wild roller coaster ride through the universe of the Spiral Arm. -- Sue Burke, Fresh Fiction