THRONE PRICE, by Lynda Williams and myself, was the first published book of Lynda’s series about descendents of Earth colonists for whom Earth is more myth than memory. Humanity consists of native humans and the descendents of human variants bioengineered to withstand the rigors of space travel (Sevolites). Two cultures dominate known space,the native-human governed Rire and the Sevolite-dominated Gelion. First Contact after a thousand years of separation led to a genocidal war and a treaty of exclusion, two hundred years ago. The story of Second Contact, eighteen years previously, is told in the novels Courtesan Prince and Righteous Anger.
Erien, aged seventeen, is a Gelack of unknown ancestry and a mixed Reetion-Gelack upbringing. He arrives on Gelion homeworld determined to do whatever he must to secure Rire’s immunity from Gelack invasion, but ill-equipped to make his way in his heirarchal, violent culture. Amel, aged thirty four, has entirely too much ancestry and too much past. His only wish is to keep the rivals for the Throne of Gelion – his mother and the Ava he serves – from arriving at a bloody final reckoning. He is handicapped by notoriety earned first in his early life as a high class courtesan and then, eighteen years ago, as the captive of Rire. Erien’s mission, and even more, the secrets regarding his birth, are liable to undo everything that Amel has worked and suffered for. Surrounding them are people with their own political, sexual and social agendas: Ava-Ameron himself, a monarch determined at all costs not to repeat past mistakes; Ev’rel, Amel’s mother, rival to the Throne and a woman with damaging secrets of her own; Horth, Leige Nersal, the Ava’s engimatic Champion, on whom everything may depend; Ditatt, a young reformist Prince; Luthan, a cloistered Princess destined for a political marriage; Charous, the Ava’s chief spymaster and Amel’s enemy; Mira, Amel’s foster sister, a brilliant practitioner of forbidden genetic science; and D’Therd and D’Lekker, Amel’s two brothers, one who aspires to power and the other who has darker passions.
Note: this novel is intended for mature readers.
THRONE PRICE was released by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publications in 2003. For information about the other novels in the series, see The Okal Rel Universe website, and the Edge website.
Reviews
For reviews, see the THRONE PRICE page of the Edge Website.