Skyfall by Catherine Asaro

Product Details

Synopsis

Catherine Asaro exploded onto the science fiction scene in 1995 with the publication of her widely acclaimed debut novel, Primary Inversion, which introduced readers to the vast and intricate far-future Saga of the Skolian Empire. She won widespread acclaim for her innovative blend of cutting-edge physics, interstellar intrigue, and passionate romance. Over the next few years she garnered nominations and awards in both SF and romance. Then in 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Quantum Rose, the sixth installment in her Saga of the Skolian Empire.

If you haven't caught on to the myriad pleasures to be found in this multiple award-winning epic SF series, here's the perfect chance. Skyfall goes back to the beginning, to the re-birth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forged a vast interstellar empire.

Kurj, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Sklolian Empire.

Revel in the newest grand adventure of this Nebula Award-winning series.

Publishers Weekly

Intrigue, drama and romance converge in Nebula winner Asaro's latest Skolian Empire adventure (after 2003's The Moon's Shadow), an enthralling stand-alone that fills in the early history of the empire. Married and a widow twice over, Roca is not only the heir to the Ruby Dynasty's pharaoh, Lahaylia Selei, but also the Skolian Empire's foreign affairs councillor and an unwilling pawn in her son Kurj's efforts to rid the empire of its enemy, the sadistic Aristos. In a bid for freedom from her overbearing, manipulative son, Roca escapes and finds herself marooned on a backwater planet, Skyfall, whose inhabitants have mysterious genetic traits that connect them to the Ruby Empire of long ago. Roca becomes the hostage, captive, confidant, lover and finally wife of the bard Eldri. Though their technology is primitive, the inhabitants of Skyfall have a no less advanced society than her own. Eldri teaches Roca to trust men again, and in the end, to find a love that can surpass the demands of her position as heir to the Ruby throne. Some SF fans may be disappointed to find so little of the physics the author, a former physics professor, usually puts into her books, but romance readers will have no cause to complain. (Sept. 17) FYI: The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in the author's Saga of the Skolian Empire, was named Best SF Novel by Romantic Times Bookclub. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Catherine Asaro was born in Oakland, California and grew up in El Cerrito, just north of Berkeley. She received her Phd in Chemical Physics and MA in Physics, both from Harvard, and a BS with Highest Honors in Chemistry from UCLA. Among the places she has done research are the University of Toronto in Canada, the Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik in Germany, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her research involves using quantum theory to describe the behavior of atoms and molecules. Catherine was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research, which she currently runs.
A former ballerina, Catherine has performed with ballets and in musicals on both coasts and in Ohio. In the 1980s she was a principal dancer and artistic director of the Mainly Jazz Dancers and the Harvard University Ballet. Catherine still teaches ballet in Maryland.

Catherine's fiction is a successful blend of hard science fiction, romance, and exciting space adventure. She has published more than ten novels, almost all of which belong to her Saga of the Skolian Empire, including The Quantum Rose, which won the Nebula Award for best novel of 2001

Her husband is John Kendall Cannizzo, an astrophysicist at NASA. They have one daughter, a young ballet dancer who loves math.

Catherine Asaro received a doctorate in physics from Harvard University, has published a number of papers on theoretical physics and was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research. A former ballerina, she has performed with ballets and in musicals on both coasts. She liveswith her husband and daughter in Columbia, Maryland.