Edwer Thissell is having trouble adjusting to life on the planet Sirene. The Sirenese all wear masks to indicate their social status. They also communicate by playing instruments that are carefully selected for any social situation. (To make matters worse, errors of musical etiquette often prove fatal.) Shortly after Thissell arrives on Sirene, he finds himself embroiled in an unsolved murder made all the more mysterious by the fact that since everyone...

Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga lives repairing the chimneys, towers, and spires of the city of Bar-Selehm. Dramatically different communities live and work alongside each other. The white Feldish command the nation’ s higher echelons of society. The native Mahweni are divided between city life and the savannah. And then there’ s Ang, part of the Lani community who immigrated over generations ago as servants and now mostly live in poverty on...