Terminal World
Alastair Reynolds
 The plot begins when an "angel", a posthuman from the Celestial levels at Spearpoint's peak, falls to Neon Heights, further down the spire. The clean-up crew that finds it delivers it to Quillon, one of the zone's pathologists. It is revealed that Quillon was part of a secret angel project to see if angels could be altered to survive in Spearpoint's lower levels. The dying angel tells Quillon that certain factions amongst the angels are searching for him to obtain further information about the results of this project. Quillon seeks advice from his old ally, Fray, who tells him that he needs to leave Spearpoint if he is to survive in the foreseeable future. He summons Meroka, one of his extraction specialists, to help Quillon out of the city. Quillon and Meroka escape the city, pursued by "Ghouls"- angels with similar, but less sophisticated, inter-zonal modifications that allow them to survive in lower state zones for short periods of time. They find out that the zones had rearranged themselves totally overnight in what is called a "zone storm". They look to Spearpoint and see that all the lights have gone out, indicating the entire city has been affected by the storm. They venture on and run into an overturned carriage with several bodies having been consumed by the vorgs, carnivorous cyborgs, that harvest brain tissue to feed on. Soon Quillon and Meroka run into a Skullboy caravan and find two prisoners who they release. The Skullboys take them all hostage, then the vorgs turn up and demand fresh meat in return for making drugs for the Skullboys. Meroka offers herself up to the vorgs but before she is harvested the vorg behind her is killed by members from Swarm. Swarm airmen kill off the remaining Skullboys and Vorg and pronounce Quillons group to be "clients of Swarm". They are taken aboard one of the hundred and fifty airships that make up the entity of Swarm. The gang get taken back to Swarm's HQ and are taken to see the leader Riccasso. Meroka finds out that Quillon is an angel and as she had a chequered past with the angels, no longer speaks to him. Ricasso tells Quillon about his research into finding a complete cure for zone sickness, which would allow people to cross zone boundaries at will. The two prisoners that Quillon and Meroka released are mother Kalis and daughter Nimcha who both bear the Tectomancer birthmark. However Kalis' birthmark upon closer inspection turns out to be a tattoo used to divert hatred and prejudice from her daughter onto herself. Quillon takes great measures to hide their identity from Swarm because they are as prejudiced as all the other outerland peoples about these "witches". Eventually Ricasso finds out and agrees to kept it from the rest of Swarm as it would cause unrest with the airmen. Quillon finds out that the serum that Ricasso had been preparing before serves as an effective anti-zonal medication. Quillon asks Ricasso and a few of his most trusted allies to head back to Spearpoint to help out the millions of needy and sick people still living there. After a tense discussion it is decided that the issue will be put to the flags to see who is for or against the idea. Surprisingly the majority say that they are behind the plans, even some of Ricasso's most staunch enemies. Preparations are made to head out to Spearpoint and the serum is prepared for dilution. When one of the scouts comes back after a successful battle with a Skullboy ship they bring back intelligence and maps that the previously dead land of the Bane has had a zone realignment and using the route could be a massive short cut. Ricasso decides that this is the best plan of action even though it is highly dangerous. In the vorg cage room where Ricasso's lab is Quillon is hard at work preparing the serum for dilution and he gets surprised by Spatha who has a gun aimed at Quillon's head. Spatha demands that Quillon release a vorg to make everyone think that bringing him aboard and letting him loose in the laboratory was a bad idea. However the vorg runs through the ship and causes mayhem, releases the other vorgs in the cages and manages to kill 4 people before Nimcha uses her powers to cause a small zone tremor so the ship is reverted to a lower state zone, killing off the highly advanced vorg. Spatha is arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad. The journey across the newly opened short cut over the Bane is uneventful at first, until they come across a metallic object in the distance. The Painted Lady, Curtana's ship on which Quillon and Meroka are living is instructed to scope out the object whilst the rest of Swarm carries on its normal course. The object turns out to be a plane, unusual because the Bane is supposedly uninhabitable by anything other than single celled organisms and dirt. Soon they come across more planes, then prop-planes then bi and tri planes until they get to gliders. Many of them are marked with a red rectangle with one large stars and four small stars. (This means nothing to them, but would be consistent with it being the flag of China in our own era.) After this they see on the horizon what appears to be a very similar object to Spearpoint, but with no signs that anyone ever lived on its surface. Ricasso and Quillon elect to take a closer look at the building in a balloon as normal airships can't reach the top of the object. They see that unlike Spearpoint this object was never colonised as thoroughly and is hollow which a hole at the top. Once they get close to Spearpoint they intercept semaphore lines that tell of zone changes on the boundary of their destination which are so low state it would inhibit powered flight. A plan is made to come in steep, nurse the engines as long as possible and finally glide into Spearpoint. The is complicated by the pockets of resistance put up by Skullboys in balloons. There is a fierce battle into which Quillon and Meroka are enlisted, many of the guns and engines fail as they cross into the lower state zones but eventually they triumph. They reach Spearpoint and land in the middle of a sea of people. They are met with Tulwar's militia force that escort Quillon and Meroka to the Red Dragon Bathhouse. They start to unload the crates of Serum-15 and a stray Skullboy rocket sets fire to the tail of the Painted Lady. Luckily most of the airmen and Curtana make it off the ship with little more than burns but some of the medicine was lost in the hurry to offload it. At the bathhouse Quillon, Meroka, Kalis, and Nimcha talk to Tulwar about the distribution of the serum and about getting Nimcha close to the Mire, inside of Spearpoint, which has been calling to her through her dreams and asking her to heal it. Tulwar agrees to let them travel to the nearest tunnel entrance and suggests that they stay the night to rest after their chaotic journey. The next day they head to the Pink Peacock and enter the tunnel system with Meroka leading them. She smells something amiss with Tulwar's plan and thinks that they are being set up so that Tulwar can remain in power of Spearpoint and prolong the chaos to reign supreme. She diverts from the planned path and they eventually get caught up by Kargas, Tulwar's head of militia, and get into a fire fight. At that point Fray and Malkin turn up with powerful guns and mow down the assailants. Tulwar had informed the party that Fray was dead but this is just another of his deceptions. After talking to Fray they get lead to meet with the Mad Machines, long thought to be an urban myth about the even more mythical tunnel systems by many living in Spearpoint. They meet with Juggernaught and plead Nimchas case and it agrees to take them to see the others. They travel along without Meroka and Malkin who leave to sort out Tulwar and meet with The Final One. She informs Nimcha that she must take a place in the chamber beside the other tectomancers so they can heal the Mire. After the party leaves Nimcha and Fray down in the chamber they decide to take revenge on Tulwar for his deceptions. They hide in crates of the serum and Meroka shoots Tulwar several times, disabling him by puncturing his steam pipes. Quillon talks to Tulwar about his deceptions then spits up blood and passes out. He has internal bleeding from a shot to his back and is on his death bed. He is informed that an angel was sent out to meet with the rest of Swarm, which had hung back before the zone boundaries, and has told them that they have allies in the celestial levels. Quillon realises that these are the same allies that warned him about his imminent execution and Curtana orders him to travel with Meroka to the Celestial Levels in hopes of saving his life and finding allies to take Spearpoint back from the Skullboys and the unallied angels. The book finishes with Curtana and Agraffe wonder what changes would befall the planet and Spearpoint after Nimcha has finished healing the mire and wonder what the Mad Machines were talking about when they mentioned Earthgate and going into the planet to reach the stars.