The Phoenix in Flight

Smith and Trowbridge describe the flavor of their five-book retro-futura space opera Exordium as a cross between Star Wars and Dangerous Liaisons by way of the Three Stooges.

With its fast-moving blend of humor and horror, of high-tech skiffy and the deep places of the human heart, Exordium launches the reader into a complex, multi-layered universe as Brandon nyr-Arkad, youngest son of the ruler of the Thousand Suns, abandons the life of Service planned for him and flees into the lawless Rift. Only slowly does he discover that the world he rejected now lies in smoking ruins as the ritual vengeance of Jerrode Eusabian against Brandon's father, twenty years in preparation, culminates in an explosion of interstellar violence.

With both his brothers dead and his father the Panarch imprisoned, game-addicted playboy Brandon becomes the Panarchy's last hope.