Virga
5 primary works • 6 total works
Book 1
Welcome to the world known as Virga: a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and "towns" in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity. It is the setting for rebellions, political struggle, and dark expanses of empty winter. Young, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He's come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago. His target is Admiral Chaison Fanning, head of the fleet of Slipstream, that conquered Hayden's nation of Aerie years ago. The fact that Hayden's spent his adolescence living with pirates doesn't bode well for Fanning's chances...
Book 2
Venera Fanning was last seen falling into nothingness at the end of "Sun of Suns". Now, in "The Queen of Candesce", Venera finds herself plunging through the air among the artificial worlds of Virga, far from home and her husband, who may or may not be alive. Landing in the ancient nation of Spyre, Venera encounters new enemies and new friends (or at least convenient allies). She must quickly learn whom she can trust, and whom she can manipulate. Survival isn't her only goal; with the powerful Key of Candesce in her hands, she can control the fate of the entire world of Virga, yet something even more pressing is driving her - the all-consuming need for revenge.
Book 3
This is the third novel, after "Sun of Suns" and "Queen of Canndesce", to be set in Virga, a bubble universe artificially separated from our own future universe.Chaison Fanning, the admiral of a fleet of warships, has been captured and imprisoned by his enemies, but is suddenly rescued and set free. He flees through the sky to his home city to confront the ruler who betrayed him. And perhaps even to regain his lovely, powerful, and subversive wife, Venera. He has not seen her since she fled careening off into the air of Virga before he was captured, with the key to the artificial sun, Candesce, at the centre of Virga. Schroeder sets a whole new standard for hard SF space opera.
Book 4
In an ocean of weightless air where sunlight has never been seen, only the running lights of the city of Pacquaea glitter in the dark. One woman, Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, history tutor and dreamer, lives and dreams of love among the gas lit streets and cafes. And somewhere in the abyss of wind and twisted cloud through which Pacquaea eternally falls, a great voice has begun speaking. As its cold words reach even to the city walls - and as outlying towns and travellers' ships start to mysteriously disappear - only Leal has the courage to try to understand the message thundering from the distance. Even the city's most famous and exotic visitor, the sun lighter and hero named Hayden Griffin, refuses to turn aside from his commission to build a new sun for a foreign nation. He will not become the hero that Leal knows the city needs; so in the end, it is up to her to listen, and ultimately reply, to the worldwasp.
Book 5
A world of endless sky, with no land, no gravity: this is Virga. Beginning in the seminal science fiction novel "Sun of Suns", the saga of this striking world has introduced us to the people of stubborn pride and resilience who have made Virga their home; but also, always lurking beyond the walls of the world, to the mysterious threat known only as Artificial Nature. In "The Sunless Countries", history tutor Leal Hieronyma Maspeth became the first human in centuries to learn the true nature of this threat. Her reward was exile, but now, in Ashes of Candesce, Artificial Nature makes its final bid to destroy Virga, and it is up to Leal to unite the quarrelling clans of her world against the threat.
