"Dr. Hunt, are you telling me that Earth is hiding?"Admiral Ethan Kharg asks a space
emperor's daughter early in this brisk-but-thoughtful space opera from Hill. Circa the year
4000, Dr. Hunt, a historian also known as Princess Fuji, has turned up tantalizing
evidence that suggests humanity's home planet, long thought destroyed due to our species '
greed and negligence, somehow persists. She will join Kharg and the crew of the
brilliantly named William Lloyd Garrison on a mission from the emperor himself to find the
lost planet. At stake is a declining empire facing the persistent fractiousness of humanity,
including the emperor's heel of an heir, plus a dark new threat: a genetically engineered
virus that slavers use to turn victims into "no'vees," people whose ability to act independently
has been destroyed.

Hill offers much that will please lovers of smart SF adventures that blend expansive
universe-building with high stakes and real feeling. The alien and human civilizations
boast fascinating political perspectives-among others, the Cordura embrace collectivism
and regard the empire as tyrannical; the Republic of Archon claims descent from the apparently
long-gone United States; the Covenant presents itself as the only true defender of human freedom.
Of the perspective characters, Kharg provides a practical military perspective, while savvy Fuji's
historical and political intelligence proves invaluable-to the heroes and readers alike-as the story
arrives at a seemingly utopian society whose orderly existence conceals secrets.

Hill excels at introducing cultures and concepts (K-field technology, alien biology, disputed
histories) without losing sight of individual characters or the human consequences, as in a striking
account of 26 years as a no'vee slave. True to the genre, though, some hefty expositional passages
slow momentum, and the number of governments, ideologies, and secondary conflicts can make
the plot difficult to track, especially for space opera novices. The climactic revelations compel
and surprise, however, as disparate threads tie together in satisfying ways.

Takeaway: Ambitious epic space opera of a declining empire and the search for Earth.

Great for fans of: Walter Jon Williams's Dread Empire's Fall series, Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire.