Embustero by Scott Cleveland
Embustero is the follow up to Cleveland's Pale Boundaries , which I reviewed here . As there may be people who haven't read the first book, I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum in this review. Terson Reilly leaves Nivia via his reluctant rescuers. As he's a potential witness to their illicit activities, he's given a choice to join the crew or spend his time in the brig until they can drop him off someplace safe. He ultimately decides that a working passage is better than going stir crazy in the brig, but he soon finds that fitting in on the ship, the Embustero , isn't much better than Nivia. Meanwhile, the situation on Nivia has come to a boiling point for Halsor Tennisor. He's given the order by his mother, the head of the crime syndicate, to shut down the Family's operation and eliminate the Minzoku —the original settlers of Nivia who have been in hiding on a continent-sized wilderness preserve—including his mistress, Dayuki. But Tennisor isn...