Trapped by the evil Edrick in a locked room, Yaleen is cold-bloodedly murdered. But it is not the end of Yaleen's story, for she is given a second life - a reincarnation on Earth as a 'cherub'.
Soon she encounters Godmind, the megalomaniac artificial deity which controls life on Earth - and maintains a brutal labour colony on the Moon for any who dare to rebel. Bit by bit, Yaleen comes to understand the horrifying project of the Godmind...
Ian Watson (1943 - )Ian Watson was born in England in 1943 and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a first class Honours degree in English Literature. He lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-1967) and Tokyo (1967-1970) before beginning to publish SF with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" for the influential New Worlds magazine in 1969. He became a full-time writer in 1976, following the success of his debut novel The Embedding. His work has been frequently shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula Awards and he has won the BSFA Award twice. From 1990 to 1991 he worked full-time with Stanley Kubrick on story development for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, directed after Kubrick's death by Steven Spielberg; for which he is acknowledged in the credits for Screen Story. Ian Watson lives in Spain.