This is the middle book of a trilogy. Virga is a region of space that is essentially a great balloon-shape of air. It contains many wheel-shaped towns which are lit by artificial suns. People mine various elements from meteorites and such that are caught in the balloon, and of course, where you are in the balloon, and whether or not your town has its own sun are greatly important to your quality of life. Queen of Candesce is the story of a character from the first book, Venera Fanning, last seen “falling” through the balloon and between the artificial nations. Here, she lands in the nation of Spyre, one of the oldest nations in Virga, where plots and plans immediately begin forming around her. Since she is carrying the Key of Candesce, the cornerstone for the survival of Virga itself, things quickly begin to happen.

It’s difficult to talk about the middle book of a trilogy - often they serve as set-up and filler for the first and third books. This one though, is a rarity, a good book in its own right. I don’t recommend reading this without reading the first book, Sun of Suns, as you need the worldbuilding done in the first book to make sense out of many of the plot points. And, you need to see Venera’s actions and the reasons for them to make sense of her behavior here. But that said: this was a solid read. The plot stands on its own, the characters well-drawn, and the science interesting. It’s also topical - the books are about the allocation of resources, and what powerful nations will do to keep power, versus nations which try to get it. Schroeder is an excellent hard SF writer; he doesn’t bog things down with technical explanations that would be better served in engineering manuals, but he does give the reader enough information to make the science behind the tech and other worldbuilding believable. His prose is clean and sharp, never frilly, but is always just descriptive enough. The book has a steampunk feel to it - gravity is created in the towns with the use of special bikes powered by humans.

Overall, if you’re looking for hard SF that isn’t dystopian, but well-written and exciting, you’ll like this trilogy. If series aren’t your thing, you could do worse than pick up Lady of Mazes, which is a standalone, and is available in paperback. Highly recommended. - Nadine Armstrong