Welcome to the End of Empire. Set over two hundred years from now, in a world very much like Imperial Rome, this is the story of General Peter Black, the last decent man, as told through the eyes of his devoted (and illegitimate) daughter, Justa. Raised on battlefields, more comfortable in the company of hard men of war than with women or other children, Justa must keep the truth of her birth hidden. Her father regards her as an embarrassment, a reminder of his one and only indiscretion. Yet she is a remarkable woman, one whose keen mind wins her an education at the feet of Emperor Mathias the Glistening himself. All his life, General Black served the noble emperor, and, out of loyalty to the father, continues to serve his son after Mathias's death, even as the son's reign degenerates into an insane tyranny worthy of Nero or Caligula. As the rule of the empire passes from father to son with disastrous results, a strange metal plague begins slowly destroying the empire's technology, plunging the realm into chaos and the world into war. Amid the destruction and upheaval, General Black must decide whether to turn his back on the men and institutions who never loved him nearly as much as he did them, or whether to save his most trusted ally and adviser, his best friend and only real family. The Martian General's Daughter is a gripping tale of a world at war; of cunning strategies and vile politics; of bravery, foolishness, and excess. It is at once a stirring military adventure, a cautionary tale of repeating history, a cutting satire, and a heartbreaking examination of the joys and pain inherent in the love between a father and child. Judson's previous novel was selected in multiple best-of-the-year lists. With The Martian General's Daughter, he offers another must-read epic destined to take its place in the canon of science fiction, and sure to appeal to readers of everything from Orson Scott Card to Walter M. Miller, Jr. "A witty, learned, amusing, and sometimes moving retelling of ancient truths which I read at one gulp." -- S.M. Stirling , author of The Sunrise Lands and In the Halls of the Crimson Kings "If Suetonius had written Golden-Age SF it might have read something like this excellent novel... Judson's empire. . . is the most detailed, compelling, and believable rendering of the way actual empires work since Gibbon's Decline and Fall. The novel is also a wonderfully judged character study, a highly readable narrative, often witty, sometimes cruel . . . but best of all is the narrator, the general's daughter herself--a diffident and modest individual who is nonetheless vividly and marvelously alive, strong, and likable. I enjoyed all of it enormously, and read it pretty much in one go." -- Adam Roberts , author of Gradisil and Splinter Theodore Judson is the author of Fitzpatrick's War, which was described by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as "a spectacular first foray into speculative fiction" and was selected as one of the seven best debuts of 2004. THE MARTIAN GENERAL'S DAUGHTER By THEODORE JUDSON Prometheus Books Copyright © 2008 Theodore Judson All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-59102-643-3 Chapter One AD 2293. Late March When the word of Pretext's fall came to Peter Black's camp the general was seated beneath a conveyer belt on the Twelfth Level, watching a sales presentation made by the scrap men of Antioch Station. Many hundreds of workmen in small electric carts were parading past General Black and his staff officers while they displayed samples of the supposedly uninfected metal they were hoping to sell to the army. The traders had brought acrobats dressed in light armor made of silvery scales, and those agile young men jumped from cart to racing cart to impress the hopefully gullible soldiers. They looked like silver birds hopping across the backs of the ever-moving vehicles. "Bloch, Bloch, Pater Bloch!" the riders shouted each time they passed the general's retinue, for that is how these men of largely Middle Eastern descent mispronounced his famous surname. The red dust the machines were raising was becoming very thick around the conveyer belt; some of the officers-including Brigadier Harriman, the second-in-command-were choking on the rolling clouds and were frantically waving their hands in front of their faces to make patches of breathable air. One of these officers, a young Spaniard named Arango, remarked to me how well the general endured the dust; the others were making a great show of their suffering while the old veteran remained seated, his eyes held straight ahead and his body rigid. "He is an example to us all," said the young man. Not until the messengers came with the letter from Garden City did he realize that the general had gone to sleep. "Thank you, my darling. I will treasure it always," said my father when Brigadier Harriman touched him on the shoulder and awakened him. Father blinked at the startled man when he understood he wa