The City and the Stars

The City and the Stars is a crossover young adult/science fiction novel, but heavily influenced by historical and military fiction.

Set hundreds of years in the future mankind has established star spanning empires. One of the new powers is the Corporation of London, which has emerged as a successor state to the United Kingdom from the ashes of the chaos arising from the development of interstellar travel. Maintaining it's traditions and creating new ones as it has expanded into space - the Corporation is run in the same fashion as the medieval city albeit on a grander scale. However, most of the novel is set aboard one of the Corporation's naval ships - the ageing battleship the Whittingon.

The key technological advance that enabled faster than light travel is the exploitation of a dimension called the slip. Navigation of this dimension is made possible by the use of genetically engineered humans who have incredibly fast twitch reactions. These 'pilots' are treated as components not people and contact with them is forbidden.

This is the story of one such pilot - Sparrow - and how through accident and luck, both good and ill, she establishes her own life as seen through her eyes and the eyes of her friends and protectors.