Belarus

It's a planet ripe for a new vision-of a glorious past that once was, and could be again. Andrei Mironenko, a powerful magnate in the Star republic, believes the pristine planet of Belarus is uninhabited and unspoiled.

He didn't dig deep enough.

"With a richly imagined geo-political setting, Belarus reads like a Russian fairy tale set in space." (Syne Mitchell, Compton Crook Award-winning author of Technogenesis)