[Skolian Empire 08] • The Moon's Shadow

Catherine Asaro exploded on to 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 future Saga of the Skolian Empire. She won wide acclaim for her innovative blend of cutting-edge physics, interstellar intrigue, and passionate romance.

*Booklist* praised *Primary Inversion* as "an unusually masterful first novel combining hard speculative science and first-rate storytelling to look at the galaxy's distant future. This is one of the best SF first novels in years, a likely candidate for the genre's major awards." And *Romantic Times* called Catherine Asaro "a formidable new talent. *Primary Inversion* is a stunning, fast-paced novel of a future war between two human empires. Asaro's elegant scientific concepts of space and time play an exciting role in this absolutely nifty space drama."

Asaro continued the saga of the Skolian Empire in six subsequent volumes - *Catch the Lightning, The Last Hawk, The Radiant Seas, Ascendant Sun, The Quantum Rose,* and *Spherical Harmonic* - gaining a legion of devoted readers and regularly garnering nominations for the field's highest awards, culminating in her winning the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel for *The Quantum Rose*--in addition to winning the two most recent *Romantic Times* Awards for Best SF Novel.

With *The Moon's Shadow*, Catherine Asaro begins a thrilling new chapter in this galaxy-spanning epic, as the titanic conflicts which have raged across the cosmos at last come to a climax.

At the age of seventeen the young nobleman named Jaibriol Qox becomes ruler of a vast galactic empire - and loses everything he has ever valued.

Born of a clandestine liaison between a renegade daughter of the Skolian Imperialate and a scion of the genetically engineered Eubian Traders, Jai Qox grew up in exile, unaware of the powers that coursed through his noble blood.

In the waning days of the bloody Radiance War that ravaged the galaxy, Jai was captured and returned to the Traders to play a role as a puppet Emperor in their scheme to consolidate their domination of space.

Now Jai must walk a razor's edge, to seize the power that is his by birthright without succumbing to its dark seduction and wield it for the good of all, and to avert a conflagration that threatens to engulf a thousand worlds.