About the book: 2007 / For the progress that rushes at a gallop, humanity pays with dependence on high-tech miracles: if there is a failure, and the entire civilization will crumble like a house of cards. However, if backwardness is deliberately cultivated, and progress is artificially hobbled, you can get into an even more serious crisis: any conqueror can defeat you not with bombs, but with the help of seductive high technologies released into the wild. Strauss's debut novel, a space opera about the distant future, has been released in 2003 and was nominated for “Hugo”-2004 and “Locus”-2004 (7th place). The following year, its sequel was released - Iron Sunrise (2004), which was nominated for Hugo 2005 and Locus 2005 (2nd place). Together they form the duology “Eschaton” (“Eschaton»).