If you liked the first novel in this series, Metropolitan, you will like this one as well. I'm going to put some spoilers in, so if you haven't read the first book, don't read this, read my review of it and check it out. If you have read the first book, then continue with this review. In the first book, Aiah, the heroine, discovered a pool of earth-energy known as plasm. She sells it to a dethroned ruler of a foreign country and he in turn uses it to take over another country with her aid. At the end of the book, Constantine the Metropolitan has moved to the country he helped take over, Caraqui, and become one of the power magnates there. Aiah has tried to go back to her life at the Plasm Authority, but the authorities are starting to ask too many questions, so she goes to Caraqui to become one of Constantine's people. When she arrives, she is welcomed and put into a position to form a new government authority to track down plasm thieves so the state can be cleaned up. But along the way, she must deal with a government coup, the evil plasm vampire that assists Constantine, political rivals, and the new knowledge that the shield separating their world from the rest of the universe may be able to be breached.
This is an excellent book and is a great addition to the first because it flows right from the first to the new one. The tone stays the same, so it isn't like one of those series that is disappointing because the author can't pick up the beat from where they left off. It's a seamless trasition. The only thing I find disappointing in this series is that a third book has never come out even though it's strongly hinted at. But, whatever. You can't have everything, right? This is one of the best science fiction series I have read in a long time. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's good science fiction/fantasy, but the political turmoil in the book makes it very topical in our society today.

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