"A series milestone as we welcome the twentieth amazing entry in the nationally best-selling Liaden Universe. "The luck runs rough around Theo Waitley. Not only are people trying to kill her and capture the self-aware intelligent ship Bechimo to whom Theo is bonded, they're also trying to arrest her crew members. No wonder Theo and her crew needed a break and retired to what Bechimo refers to as 'safe space.' Unfortunately, safe space may not be...

"Exiled from Liad after bombing a city to save it from The Department of the Interior's infernal weapons and plans, Clan Korval has gone to ground on the back-water planet Surebleak, whose people are as untamed as its weather. The old Boss-controlled fiefdoms largely fell to Pat Rin yos'Phelium's influence, but the world is restive, the influx of outworld lawyers, guns, and money a brewpot for armed dissatisfaction. Far beyond the surface of frigid...

The Complex Logic Laws were the result of a war waged hundreds of years in the past, when two human powers threw massive AI navies at each other and nearly annihilated themselves. Being human, they blamed their tools for this near miss; they destroyed what was left of the sentient ships, and made it illegal to be, manufacture, or shelter an independent logic. Strangely, however, the Free Ships and other AIs did not turn themselves in or suicide, they...