Description:

In this follow-up book to FLEET OF WORLDS, Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner return to Known Space, with all its interstellar -- and interspecies -- intrigue. The Puppeteers, the two-headed aliens with vastly superior technologies, seem to have abandoned Earth, taking their interstellar starships with them. Sigmund Ausfaller, head of Earth's powerful militia and spy agency, sets out to find what Nessus and his fellow Puppeteers are up to. Readers familiar with Known Space stories, will recognize Carlos Wu, Beowulf Schaeffer and other characters from Larry Niven's universe. This Niven/Lerner series was praised by Library Journal for its "intriguing human and alien characters and lucid scientific detail."