Things are going badly for the Clan in this new SF novel of the Merchant Princes, the immensely popular series by Charles Stross. Locked in a vicious civil war for control over the kingdom of Niejwein, their army is bottled up inside a fortress under siege in two parallel universes at once. Duke Angbard, the Clan€™s leader, has been laid low by a stroke: plotters are already conspiring in readiness for the deadly dance to come. Miriam, rescued from a tight spot in New Britain, finds the hopes of the young, progressive faction focused on her. But do they want her as a leader or a figurehead? She soon finds herself thrown into a desperate struggle for power. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Clan, researchers working for the US government have achieved a technological breakthrough. The War on Terror is about to go transdimensional. In the fifth Merchant Princes novel, things are going very badly for the Clan. Civil war rages over control of the kingdom of Niejwein, and the Clan’s army is under siege in two universes. The Clan’s leader has suffered a stroke, and the normal plotting and intrigue have ratcheted up. Miriam, the worldwalking Clan princess raised in our world, has been rescued (again!) and plopped in the center of the Clan’s ostensibly progressive faction. Even as she tries to figure out who wants her as a leader and who is just looking for a figurehead, authorities in our world break the secret of transdimensional travel and are coming through. --Frieda Murray Praise for The Merchants’ War : “Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes novels are economic science fiction worth reading.” —Paul Krugman, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Unraveling “The world-building in this series is simply superb, in other words—it is engaging, crystal-clear and disturbingly real…. The Merchants’ War is fast-paced and engrossing and will leave readers ravenous for the next installment.” —SciFi.com “For sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top.” —Publishers Weekly “A fantastically thrilling series.” —Booklist Charles Stross is the author of the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry series, and several stand-alone novels including Glasshouse , Accelerando , and Saturn's Children . Born in Leeds, England, in 1964, Stross studied in London and Bradford, earning degrees in pharmacy and computer science. Over the next decade and a half he worked as a pharmacist, a technical writer, a software engineer, and eventually as a prolific journalist covering the IT industry. His short fiction began attracting wide attention in the late 1990s; his first novel, Singularity Sky , appeared in 2003.  He has subsequently won the Hugo Award twice. He lives with his wife in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a flat that is slightly older than the state of Texas. Chapter One Heir Apparent I am not hearing this, Miriam Beckstein told herself. The temptation to giggle, to laugh it all off as a bizarre joke, was enormous. Pretend it isn't happening; yeah, right. Story of my life. She tightened her grip on the valise holding her notebook PC and its precious CD- ROMs. Except that for the past six months, the mad stuff had made a habit of punching her in the guts whenever she least expected it. "Run that by me again," she said. "It's quite simple," said the hard- eyed young debutante with the machine pistol. "Your mother wants to use you to consolidate power." She kept her eyes focused on Miriam as she twisted the magazine free of the gun, worked a slide to eject a cartridge, and swapped another magazine into place. "The duke agrees with her. And we"—the eloquent roll of her shoulder took in their companions, a cohort of young and alarmingly heavily armed Clan world- walkers—"intend to make sure you're not just there for show." They look like students, thought Miriam. Students outfitted by North Face for a weekend hike; accessories by Fabrique Nationale and Heckler & Koch. Of course they were nothing of the kind. Young aristocrats of the Clan nobility—born in the curious quasi- mediaeval kingdom of Gruinmarkt, and able to travel to other worlds at will—they might look like ordinary American undergrads, but the mind- set behind those fresh young faces was very different. "Oh, really?" she managed. The idea of her mother—and the duke—plotting to put her on the throne of the Gruinmarkt was pretty preposterous, on the face of it—but then, so were so many of the other intrigues the Clan seemed to generate. Then another thought struck her: You said "we," didn't you? So Brill had an agenda of her own, over and above her loyalty to the duke—or Miriam, for that matter? Time to probe. . . . "Was this"—she pointed at her belly, quiet anger in her voice—"part of their plan?" "Milady" Brill—Lady Brilliana d'Ost, a mere twenty- something—furrowed her brow. "With all due respect, if you think that, you're paranoid. Do you really think the duke—or your mother—know you so