Queen of Candesce

Queen of Candesce (Virga Book 2) by Karl Schroeder

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This is a call-back to classic science fiction with big ideas and swashbuckling. Virga is a planet-sized, gas-filled bag in space. It lacks gravity. It is inhabited by humans who have created low-tech versions of artificial gravity through centrifugal force. Lumps of soil provide farm lands. Water may exist in vast bubbles. Animals have evolved to move by flying. We know nothing of the universe outside of Virga, except that there are hostile artificial intelligences who are prepared to take over Virga if the field surrounding Virga that suppresses electronics is turned off.

The center region of Virga is home to Candesce, the Sun of Suns, which illuminates the central region of space. Candesce is an artificial sun. Other artificial suns in outlying regions allow humans to live outside the central regions in nations that stay together and float in the air current around Virga.

The first book followed the adventures of Hayden Griffin. Griffin belongs to the nation of Aerie which was conquered by the nomadic nation of Slipstream. His parents were part of the Aerie resistance with plans to light up a new sun and declare independence. Things go wrong and Hayden is left with a mission of vengeance that took him to Candesce with Slipstream admiral Chaison Fanning and his connivingly competent wife Venera Fanning. This group gets the “key to Candesce,” which almost leads to disaster as an agent of the outside entities almost get the key to Virga. The story ends with Hayden jetting away to complete his mission, Chaison's ship destroyed, and Venera dropping away from Hayden into the open air of Virga in the hope of finding some place to land.

The second book opens with Venera arriving at the strange “world” of Spyre which is a large spinning tube with a smaller tube inside. The tubes spin to provide artificial gravity. Spyre is old and is falling apart. Its society has devolved into micro-nations, composed of a few buildings or a few acres. Venera uses her skills at conniving to elevate herself in this crazy culture. She has the Key to Candesce, which is of particular interest to the nation of Sacrus. Sacrus appears to have tentacles throughout Virga. The key will allow it to expand out of the restricted area it controls on Spyre.

During the course of this story, Venera becomes humanized. She started in the first book as a kind of villain. In this book, she becomes concerned with other people and acts heroically. Her mission remains to escape Spyre and to return to Slipstream for vengeance.

This is a fun and easy read. The format of this series seems to be to follow the original characters separately, which was surprising to me since I thought we would be following Griffin to the next stage of his mission. The next book appears to involve Chaison Fanning.