Alastair Reynolds

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia has a dark side. As members of the habitats start suddenly and randomly dying, a charismatic figure begins to sow insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of inhabitants to break away from the Glitter Band.

"The once-utopian Chasm City a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted from its people to the very buildings they inhabit only the most wretched, grim sort of existence remains." -- Jacket.

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus. But then his investigation...

From the master of the space opera comes a dark, mind-bending adventure spread across time and space, where Doctor Silas Coade is tasked with keeping his crew safe as they adventure across the galaxy in search of a mysterious artifact. In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly...

Presents a collection of short stories that focus on the idea of vast intergalactic societies, from such authors as Orson Scott Card, John C. Wright, Robert Silverberg, Anne McCaffrey, and Lois McMaster Bujold.