Overall the book is in great shape light wear on the edges. Shipped the next business day! We own a small family book store and sell our extra books and media that have been on our shelfs for too long. We sell them for a quarter of the price at our store so we can move our inventory! Additional Details ------------------------------ Product description: Most readers recognize L. E. Modesitt, Jr., as the author of a favorite fantasy series, be it The Magic of Recluce or The Spellsong Cycle. It's always a special treat when he turns his hand again to science fiction and Beauty is no exception.Four centuries in the future, the world is rich--nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody--but no Utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people. A singing teacher suffers for her music and fights bureaucracy and apathy. A news researcher delivers the essential background details but can't help looking deeper and wondering about the real story behind the grim incidents that make the headlines. A police investigator, assigned to study trends, begins to see a truly sinister pattern behind a series of seemingly unrelated crimes and deaths. A politician aids his constituents, fights the good fight, and tries to get reelected without compromising his principles. A ruthless businessman strives to make his family powerful, wealthy, and independent.Theirs is a society where technology takes care of everyone's basic needs but leaves most people struggling to extract a meaningful life from a world crowded with wonders but empty of commitment and human connection. Alternating the voices and experiences of these five characters in a tour de force of imaginative creation, Modesitt overlaps, combines, and builds their disparate stories into a brilliant tale of future crime and investigation, esthetic challenge and personal triumph. In the same way that he has built fantasy landscapes of surpassing fascination, Modesitt creates a believable future, one imbued with a deep understanding of the way politics works and how people act and react when their sense of themselves, of justice and truth, is exploited by others for power and control. When there's nothing left to need or want, will beauty live on in people's lives or disappear forever?L. E. Modesitt, Jr. asks difficult questions, sets himself unlikely challenges, and once again delivers an absorbing tale that enlightens, entertains, and uplifts all at once.Modesitt has outdone himself...This brilliant novel is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)Other Series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.The Saga of RecluceThe Imager PortfolioThe Corean ChroniclesThe Spellsong CycleThe Ghost BooksThe Ecolitan MatterThe Forever HeroTimegod's WorldOther BooksThe Green ProgressionHammer of DarknessThe Parafaith WarAdiamanteGravity DreamsThe Octagonal Raven BeautyThe Ethos EffectFlashThe Eternity ArtifactThe Elysium CommissionViewpoints CriticalHazeEmpress of EternityThe One-Eyed ManSolar Express Format: bargain_price