Shortlisted for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best SF Novel The year is 2454 Humanity has engineered a hard-won golden age forged in the aftermath of a bitter conflict that wiped both religion & nation state from the planet Now seven factions or 'hives' co-govern the world their rule fuelled by benign censorship oracular statistical analytics & technological abundance But this is a fragile Utopia
- & someone is intent on pushing it to breaking point Convicted for his crimes celebrated for his talents Mycroft Canner is the indentured instrument
- & confidant
- of some of the world's most powerful figures When he is asked to investigate a bizarre theft he finds himself on the trail of a conspiracy that could shatter the tranquil world order the Hives have maintained for three centuries But Mycroft has his own secrets He is concealing a much greater threat to the seven Hives a wild card no degree of statistical analysis could have prophesised This threat takes the unlikely form of a thirteen-year-old called Bridger For how will a world that has banished God deal with a child who can perform miracles?