Elysium Fire - Alastair Reynolds

n nElysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera. nTen thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise. n nBut even utopia needs a police force.

For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives. n nPrefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants.

And these melters leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths... n nAs panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies. n nFor more from Alastair Reynolds, check out: n nRevenger nn