The Promise of the Child
of the Amaranthine Spectrum
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
It is the 147th century.
In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.
In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and dangerous, an invention is born that will become the Firmament’s most closely kept secret.
Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.
Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.
Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament—the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.
From medieval Prague to a lonely Mediterranean cove, and eventually far into the strange vastness of distant worlds, The Promise of the Child is a debut novel of gripping action and astounding ambition unfolding over hundreds of thousands of years, marking the arrival of a brilliant new talent in science fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Toner's ambitious debut, which opens the Amaranthine Spectrum series, is a thoughtful, languid space opera. The several 147th-century cultures on display are fascinating, but the pace is leisurely. The characters are also odd and only gradually revealed to be post-human, both physically and intellectually. For example, Lycaste, one of the many protagonists, seems at first mentally limited, and he changes colors much like an octopus to express emotions. He lives naked in a deceptively peaceful world where almost everything he needs quite literally grows on trees including meat and simple utensils or can be scavenged from the wreckage of the deep past. Meanwhile, the centuries-long reign of the immortal ruler of the Amaranthine Firmament is being contested by another immortal, the mysterious Aaron the Long-Life, and the entire decadent empire is under attack by a number of mortal post-human species. The pace picks up as the tale moves toward its end, but this is the kind of book that will most appeal to cerebral readers who can appreciate its characters' many verbal interactions even when they delay the plot.
