Data detective Mary Vine is visiting relatives when she uncovers a Chinese programme of AI development active within her own family.

Ulu Okere has only one goal: to help her profoundly disabled brother, whose unique feats of memory inspire her yet perturb the community they live in.

And in a transmuted Thailand, Somchai Chokdee is fleeing his Buddhist temple as an AI-inspired political revolution makes living there too dangerous.

In 2100 life is dominated by vast, unknowable AIs that run most of the world and transform every society they touch. When suspicions of a Chinese conspiracy seem substantiated, Mary, Ulu and Somchai decide they must oppose it. Yet in doing so they find themselves facing something the world has never seen before...

'A gripping read to the poignant last line.' - Eric Brown on Beautiful Intelligence, The Guardian 'Stephen Palmer is a fnd.' - Time Out 'The vividly depicted grim urban setting and numerous absorbing secondary characters keep the pages turning.' - Publishers Weekly 'Palmer's imagination is fecund.' - Interzone 'A tour de Force in imagining possibilities that lie beyond our information age.' - NY Review of SF 'His work is unique, original, sometimes challenging, always fresh.' - Amazing Stories 'One of the most inventive and imaginative Fantasy writers I know of.' - Teresa Egerton