Gren Moritz is the newly elected Chief Minister for the Nations of Rivennia, and the first from Varcega. Varcegians believe in tradition; they eat farmed meat and practice arranged marriages (Gren\u2019s wife, Lorelei, was carefully chosen by his grandparents). Gren\u2019s main platform is \u201cprotecting humanity from the rise of ultrahumanism,\u201d but his initial bill may prove controversial\u2014it proposes sterilization for anyone planning gene enhancement treatments, ensuring that unwanted mutations can\u2019t spread. Gren\u2019s not the only one in charge. Rivennia has a monarch, but the science-worshipping Human Order, with its Supreme Leader Igor Voychenko, appears to wield the real power. At a dinner Gren reluctantly attends, he\u2019s introduced to the Liffdom Lodges, Voychenko\u2019s amoral secret society. Gren\u2019s pressured to play a game, wagering on the date of Queen Brynhilda\u2019s death. His competitors are also newcomers: washed-up supermodel Primula Zhang, now the face of fast-fashion brand Skitto, and a low-level government resource analyst, Sam Rosendale. Sharing painful personal secrets, Primula and Sam closely bond. When the date Primula chose passes without the queen\u2019s demise, Primula disappears, and Sam, with the chief minister\u2019s help, attempts to expose the dangerous truth of where she went, and why. In a self-assured debut, Urencio creates an inventive, fascinating world. Lacunfort, the metropolis Gren and Lorelei inhabit in the Year 500, contains wonders; a screen overhead mimics a sky, with more layers of the city stacked on top\u2014as surprised country-girl Lorelei notes, \u201clike a pile of pancakes!\u201d Bots are fully incorporated into the society, performing hospital work, extinguishing fires, even powdering Gren\u2019s face before his talk-show appearance. For transportation, capsulas speed through vacuum pneuducts. The characters, major and minor, are as carefully crafted as the setting. Urencio has a particularly deft and empathetic touch with those often overlooked, whether they\u2019re a marginalized trans man; or aging, like Gren\u2019s hardworking, self-effacing assistant; or the frail queen, though a \u201cliving relic,\u201d who also elicits respect. The queen\u2019s advice to Gren is wise: \u201cThe single most important trait [for a politician] is detachment.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gren Moritz is the newly elected Chief Minister for the Nations of Rivennia, and the first from Varcega. Varcegians believe in tradition; they eat farmed meat and practice arranged marriages (Gren\u2019s wife, Lorelei, was carefully chosen by his grandparents). Gren\u2019s main platform is \u201cprotecting humanity from the rise of ultrahumanism,\u201d but his initial bill may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}