IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS

Book 2 of S.M. Stirling's series "The Lords of Creation", to be published by Tor in Feb/Mar(?) 2008.

While the men and women from Earth are gods from the sky on primitive Venus, on Mars humans or near-humans were building cities and doing calligraphy when fire was the latest superweapon Earthlings had developed to deal with cave bears. They're not impressed with the vaz-Terranan... and they have agendas of their own.

Airships, swords, lost cities, decadent civilizations, singing clocks... and that's just the beginning.

This book is a sequel to "The Sky People".

Acknowledgements:

To Melinda Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, Sage Walker, Emily Mah, Terry England, George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Yvonne Coats, Sally Gwylan, Laura Mixon-Gould and Ian Tregillis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction, which enabled me to avoid some of the faults I couldn’t see. A fish can’t see water!

Thanks to Jerry Pournelle for some inside information on matters fannish... but he’s not to blame for the things I got wrong! And to Mike Ralls, Jr. for a suggestion about the prologue

To the Pulpsters and Golden Age writers, from the author of Phra the Phoenician on down, to the creators of Northwest Smith and John Carter; and to PJ Farmer. For inspiration!

All mistakes, infelicities and errors are of course my own.

Dedication:

to Jan, my emerald-eyed muse.