Professor Tikaya Komitopis isn’t a great beauty, a fearless warrior, or even someone who can walk and chew chicle at the same time, but her cryptography skills earn her wartime notoriety. When enemy marines show up at her family’s plantation, she expects the worst.
But they’re not there to kill her. They need her to decode mysterious runes, and they ask for help in the manner typical of a … of a conquering empire: they kidnap her, threaten her family, and throw her in the brig of their fastest steamship.
Her only ally is a fellow prisoner who charms her with a passion for academics as great as her own. Together, they must decipher mind-altering alchemical artifacts, deadly poison rockets, and malevolent technological constructs, all while dodging assassination attempts from a rival power determined the expedition should fail. As if the situation weren’t treacherous enough, this new “ally” may turn out to be the last person Tikaya should trust. Those runes cloak more than mysteries, however, and he’s the only one who can help her unravel them before their secrets destroy the world.
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As usual, great characters and a good story to surround them. Lindsay Buroker was one of the first author to make me appreciate strong female protagonists. Most Fiction (Fantasy, Steam Punk and SciFi in her case) has traditionally had the strong male character as the central focal point of the story with women in supporting roles, but after …
I have had a lot of “first dates” with the free series starters lately and found the books lacking in so many ways, never enough there for the second in the series. But this one delivers. Plenty of action. Believable characters Loads of delicious bantering and plenty of ‘ahhh….what’s going to happen next?’ moments.
This was so much fun to …
My favorite of Buroker’s novels. Feisty, but initially non-martial heroine, is pushed to do more than she would have believed possible by the soldier mentor she is thrown together with. Her cryptography skills prove invaluable.
Wonderful!
Again the writing style, story building, and character development kept me hooked to a book by Lindsay Buroker. I usually feel like being played when an author recommends to read (= buy) another of her books to fully understand a story, but after already being hooked to her Emperor’s Edge series I didn’t mind to prolong my stay in this “world” …
I have been an enthusiastic reader of every L. Buroker novel I’ve bought; And I’ve bought a lot of them. She needs to keep writing to feed my habit. I particularly enjoy the way she combines action with witty dialog.
The series was awesome !