 It was nominated for the 1997 Philip K. Dick Award and for the 1998 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; it also obtained fourth place in the poll for the 1998 Locus Award for Best First Novel.Like its sequels, "An Exchange of Hostages" is set in a dystopic space opera future ruled by an autocratic judiciary.The novel and most of its sequels follow Andrei Koscuisko, a state torturer, and are primarily concerned with his reactions to the violence he is called on to commit.