Schism - Part One of Triad

Ascendant Sun is the direct sequel to The Last Hawk, in which Kelric, heir to the Skolian Empire, crash-landed his fighter on the Restricted planet of Coba. He was imprisoned by the powerful mistresses of the great estates--women who, over time, fell in love with him. After 18 years of living in their gilded cage, Kelric finally made his escape.

In Ascendant Sun, Kelric returns to Skolian space, only to find the Empire in control of the Allied forces of Earth. With little more than the clothes on his back, Kelric is forced to take work on a merchant vessel. But when that vessel enters Euban space, Kelric finds his worst nightmare realized: he becomes a slave to the cruel Aristos--humans who use torture and sex as the ultimate aphrodesiac.

Catherine Asaro is a popular SF writer, combining her diverse talents to blend hard science fiction and heartrending romance into a sweeping epic known as the Saga of the Skolian Empire. This is her trademark series. Ever since Primary Inversion, her very first novel, this series has continued to grow, building a significant readership and receiving widespread praise.

All of Asaro's considerable talent is on display in Spherical Harmonic, the direct sequel to The Radiant Seas.

Separated for decades by circumstance and political machinations, the Ruby Dynasty, hereditary rulers of the Skolian Empire, struggle to bring together the tattered remnants of their family in the shadow of a disastrous interstellar war. Too many have died, others are presumed lost, yet they must move quickly if they are reassume their rightful place as rulers of Skolia.

Catherine Asaro exploded onto the science fiction scene in 1995 with the publication of her widely acclaimed debut novel, Primary Inversion, which introduced readers to the vast and intricate far-future Saga of the Skolian Empire. She won widespread acclaim for her innovative blend of cutting-edge physics, interstellar intrigue, and passionate romance. Over the next few years she garnered nominations and awards in both SF and romance. Then in 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Quantum Rose, the sixth installment in her Saga of the Skolian Empire.

If you haven't caught on to the myriad pleasures to be found in this multiple award-winning epic SF series, here's the perfect chance. Skyfall goes back to the beginning, to the re-birth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forged a vast interstellar empire.

Kurj, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Sklolian Empire.

Revel in the newest grand adventure of this Nebula Award-winning series.

Catherine Asaro exploded on to the science fiction scene in 1995 with the publication of her widely acclaimed debut novel, Primary Inversion, which introduced readers to the vast and intricate future Saga of the Skolian Empire. She won wide acclaim for her innovative blend of cutting-edge physics, interstellar intrigue, and passionate romance.

Booklist praised Primary Inversion as "an unusually masterful first novel combining hard speculative science and first-rate storytelling to look at the galaxy's distant future. This is one of the best SF first novels in years, a likely candidate for the genre's major awards." And Romantic Times called Catherine Asaro "a formidable new talent. Primary Inversion is a stunning, fast-paced novel of a future war between two human empires. Asaro's elegant scientific concepts of space and time play an exciting role in this absolutely nifty space drama."

Asaro continued the saga of the Skolian Empire in six subsequent volumes - Catch the Lightning, The Last Hawk, The Radiant Seas, Ascendant Sun, The Quantum Rose, and Spherical Harmonic - gaining a legion of devoted readers and regularly garnering nominations for the field's highest awards, culminating in her winning the 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel for The Quantum Rose--in addition to winning the two most recent Romantic Times Awards for Best SF Novel.

With The Moon's Shadow, Catherine Asaro begins a thrilling new chapter in this galaxy-spanning epic, as the titanic conflicts which have raged across the cosmos at last come to a climax.

At the age of seventeen the young nobleman named Jaibriol Qox becomes ruler of a vast galactic empire - and loses everything he has ever valued.

Born of a clandestine liaison between a renegade daughter of the Skolian Imperialate and a scion of the genetically engineered Eubian Traders, Jai Qox grew up in exile, unaware of the powers that coursed through his noble blood.

In the waning days of the bloody Radiance War that ravaged the galaxy, Jai was captured and returned to the Traders to play a role as a puppet Emperor in their scheme to consolidate their domination of space.

Now Jai must walk a razor's edge, to seize the power that is his by birthright without succumbing to its dark seduction and wield it for the good of all, and to avert a conflagration that threatens to engulf a thousand worlds.