'A visionary steam-powered heavy metal fantasy. Gibson and Sterling create a high-Victorian virtual reality of extraordinary richness and detail' Ridley Scott, creator of ALIEN

In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. One of these is Mendoza, the botanist, who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden.

Facilitator Joseph has outlasted entire civilizations during his twenty-thousand years of service to Dr Zeus, the twenty-fourth century Company that created immortal operatives like him to preserve history and culture. The year is 1699 and Joseph is now in Alta California, to imitate an ancient Native-American Coyote god.

Meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus. He's used his immortal centuries to plot a complete takeover of the world since he was a young god-figure in Sumeria. In a meditative mood, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion of the Company black project ADONAI.