Valencies

by Damien Broderick, Rory Barnes

In the year 4004 AD, the entire universe of habitable worlds has been filled with human beings, thanks to an ancient teleport network and unlimited growth. Humans live on more than a hundred quadrillion terraformed planets, all woven into a bureaucratic and restrictive Empire. VALENCIES tracks a frustrated group of libertarian anarchists on the marginal planet Victoria. Kael, son of three gay doctors, and Theri, daughter of a man and woman bound by maniacal doctrinal tenets, are a young couple in a cosmos of complacent immortals. Ben and Anla the clone rage and passionately make up in a cycle of dominance and submission as old as history or myth. And slipping like a mad trickster between the four is Catsize, former commander, terrible poet crazed by two millennia of thwarted revolutions, hilarious prankster, an instigator of mischief and healer of souls. VALENCIES tells with pathos and humor a richly detailed portrait of the struggle against an Empire that's prepared to obliterate an entire world. Brian W. Aldiss said about this "One of the most playful SF novels of recent years."

206 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2013

About the author

Damien Francis Broderick was an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits him with the first usage of the term "virtual reality" in science-fiction, in his 1982 novel The Judas Mandala.