A utopian novel set in an alternate world’s equivalent of the 19th century. Dimos Horacki is a Borolian journalist and a cynical patriot, his muckraking days behind him. But when his newspaper ships him to the front, he’s embedded in the Imperial Army and the reality of colonial expansion is laid bare before him.
His adventures take him from villages and homesteads to the great refugee city of Hronople, built of glass, steel, and stone, all the while a war rages around him. The empire fights for coal and iron, but the anarchists of Hron fight for their way of life.
“This is a fierce, intelligent, hopeful book—a fantasy (of sorts) of unusual seriousness, humanity, and wit.”
—Felix Gilman, author of The Half-Made World“This gritty evocative novel explores the question of what an anarchist community can do to resist the assaults that are sure to come if any such social formation were to exist. Yet more important still is that this is an exciting and mysterious novel, a story of war and love in some fictional mountainous country with echoes of nineteenth century Latin America, eastern Europe, central Asia; by the time you’re done you feel you’ve gotten a glimpse into a forgotten part of our history that is nevertheless very real.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy“Gulliver’s Travels meets The Dispossessed. It’s a wild ride, and you don’t want to miss it.”
—Gabriel Kuhn, author of Life Under the Jolly Roger