Ascendancy: A Novel (The Ascendancy Trilogy, 1)

From the author of The Stars Too Fondly comes a queer cyberpunk space opera following a butch anarchist rebel pilot and a sword-wielding femme fatale raised in a transhumanist death cult, whose clashing ideologies and blazing romance may unite humanity or strike its killing blow — perfect for fans of Tamsyn Muir and Arkady Martine. One thousand years after the collapse of Earth, on one of Jupiter’s many moons, Neev Alpha-Cilix meets Ida Arkimidias. Neev, a pilot Apprenticed to the Jovian Ascendancy, has lived her entire life under the all-seeing gaze of the Council of Ascendants. Abandoned at the Europan Academy by their mother, Neev and her siblings learned never to question the Neionet or the chips in their heads. Ida, rescued from orphanhood and raised by the militant New Rhodes Reformation, believes that the Ascendancy’s iron grip on the last children of Earth will only end when humanity abandons its bodily form and embraces omniscience. When a chance encounter at the Academy sparks a blazing mutual attraction, Neev begins to question everything and Ida’s faith wavers for the first time in her life.