Admiral hunt.

Or, it seems everybody would like to have their hands on Chaison Fanning, the man who managed to decimate an opposing fleet with only six ship.

This includes militaries of various cities, politicians, pirates, rebels, invading artificial intelligences, torturers and zero gravity gaolers. Then there are agents of the Virga Home Guard, and even his own spousal unit, Venera Fanning - the protagonist of previous volumes.

Chaison is not as sneaky, devious or nasty as his wife, but does have a few cunning plans of his own to get through this, even if a few altruistic streaks distract him into helping others at times. Escapes on airbikes, hawkmen style and more are to be found.

Many would still like to have the Key to Candesce.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/09... ( )

I thought highly of the first two books in Karl Schroeder’s Virga series. Unfortunately, my pleasure reading those books did not carry through the third, Pirate Sun. Schroeder’s created an amazing physical place and an interesting political world in Virga. For example, there’s an epic weightless battle in part two that would be heaven to see on the big screen. However, the plotting and characterization are all over the map in the last book of the series. The aforementioned space battle is superfluous to the plot, serving only to illustrate how one might fight a weightless battle.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

http://tyranist.blogspot.com/2009/01/... ( )

As the tale of Virga unfolds, the focus moves from Venera Fanning (villain of the first book and heroine of the second) to her husband Chaison, admiral on the run from his nation of Slipstream. We get more swashbuckling action as political turmoil unfolds between the nations floating in air-filled space, exposition of Virga's role in larger transhuman conflicts, and setup for the next volume in the series. Schroeder does a good job of keeping each novel self-contained while slowly building up the larger story. ( )

Not quite as good as Queen of Candesce, but still a fun read. Full review here. ( )

http://geekylibrarian.wordpress.com/2... ( )

The setting and SFnal ideas are fascinating, but I am having trouble getting into the steampunk, which occupies vast swathes of the plot. I wish he would write a good old fashioned space opera without any "aborigines".