From Booklist
In Carver's complex new novel, space "riggers" use the currents of an amorphous, mind-altering continuum called the Flux to guide sleek starships through space. But the Flux also has frightening, deep calms. A rigger needs emotional control and concentration to avoid being trapped in the calms and drifting endlessly. Rigger Renwald Le-groeder has been highly successful at that task but doesn't anticipate his captain's treacherous betrayal of the Ciudad de Los Angeles and all aboard her to space pirates. After seven long years, Legroeder escapes, only to discover that higher authorities than his captain have made profitable deals with the pirates, and those forces now want Le-groeder dead. In his struggle to discover the truth about his situation, he joins forces with the alien Narseil, whose flexible time sense makes them superior navigators in the Flux. He also partners with two mechanically augmented humans: the sexy representative of a rival pirate clan and a fellow escapee from the pirates' forced labor troops. Characterization occasionally falters, but every word of the space battles and voyages convinces. Roberta Johnson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Dec. 2000
"Straight into the jaws of doom and destiny...and a final resolution that leaves the reader both breathless and satisfied."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jeffrey A. Carver, author of The Infinity Link and The Rapture Effect, returns with a new science fiction epic set against a sweeping backdrop of interstellar war, space piracy, and star-spanning conspiracy.

After seven years of captivity at the hands of interstellar pirates, Star Rigger Renwald Legroeder escapes to the Centrist Worlds, thinking himself free to return to rigging.

Instead, he finds himself a target of a conspiracy that stretches across light-years—from the Centrist Worlds to the pirate stars beyond—a conspiracy that has survived interstellar war and claimed the lives of millions, both human and alien.

Legroeder's only hope of escaping the clutches of the conspiracy is to embark on a suicide mission that will plunge him back into the heart of the pirates' stronghold in search of a legend—the phantom rigger Impris, a long-lost ship, known as the Flying Dutchman of space.

Awaiting him at the stronghold is a universe of danger, a cybernetically advanced underground in the dark heart of the conspiracy, and a woman who could prove his downfall...or his salvation...

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

After his escape from the notorious Kyber pirates, star rigger Renwald Legroeder finds himself on trial for his freedom by those he had hoped would protect him. Accused of collaboration and treason, Legroeder accepts a perilous mission to recover the starship Impris, a vessel lost in the timelessness of Flux space, in the hopes that he can vindicate himself and halt a conspiracy that permeates the colonized worlds. Carver ("Chaos Chronicles") continues his series of novels set in the Star Rigger universe with a mesmerizing tale of human perseverance and courage under pressure that updates the legend of the Flying Dutchman. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Carver extends his established series about the star riggers, who navigate spaceships through the perilous region of space-time called the Flux. Rigger Renwald Legroeder, captured by the piratical Kyber seven years ago, makes a miraculous escape and returns to the Centrist World of Faber Eridani. His escape, along with his report—that the pirates are using the ghost ship Impris, lost in the Flux 124 years ago, as a lure—brings only hostility, accusations of complicity, and disbelief. Arrested, jailed, then released on bail, thanks to lawyer Harriet Mahoney—her grandson went missing on Legroeder's ship when it was captured—Legroeder realizes he's stumbled into a vast conspiracy to conceal the truth. The deception began a century ago, when the Centrist Worlds, at war with the Kyber, sold out their alien allies, the Narseil, in order to buy a precarious peace. The Narseil themselves mean to make the truth known, and intend to start by recovering Impris—whose crew, thanks to the weird time effects in the deep Flux, seem to be still alive. In order to find Impris, though, the Narseil need Legroeder's help to contact the Kyber underground—not all Kyber agree with the Kyber's piratical approach. But even if they do contact Impris deep in the Flux, there's no guarantee that they'll be able to get back out. A large, bustling, salty yarn whose plot doesn't withstand too much scrutiny. Overall, much less convincing than the author's splendid Chaos Chronicles (The Infinite Sea, 1996, etc.).