Night of Masks

Book excerpt: In the aftermath of interplanetary war, a disfigured loner is given a chance at a new life—but at a steep cost, in this novel from “a superb storyteller” (The New York Times). Disfigured in the wars that destroyed his planet, Nik Kolherne lives a shadow existence in the sprawling refugee ghetto of the Dipple. He wears a mask to cover his scars and dreams about another country under an unfettered blue sky and a warm sun. But a chance encounter gives him the opportunity for a new face—and a new life. All he has to do is impersonate a young boy’s fantasy hero. So what if Nik is now allied with the Thieves’ Guild, a subversive outlaw group that seeks their prey on loosely held frontier worlds? A kid all alone in the world could use an ally. His mission is to lure Vandy Naudhin i’Akrama, the young son of a powerful warlord, from his high-security villa and deliver him to the Guild so they can access critical information locked in his brain. But when Nik and Vandy are shipped off to Dis, a burned-out wasteland of a planet, Nik realizes he’s a pawn in a spiraling web of political intrigue and intergalactic evil that threatens both their lives.