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The Merchants of Souls

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Country
  
United States

Publication date
  
Nov 2001

OCLC
  
60799717

Author
  
John Barnes

Followed by
  
The Armies of Memory

3.8/5
Goodreads

Language
  
English

ISBN
  
0-7653-0330-2

Originally published
  
November 2001

Preceded by
  
Earth Made of Glass

Publisher
  
Tor Books

The Merchants of Souls t0gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcSMmJIPdOfks72Y

Media type
  
Print (hardback & paperback)

Genres
  
Novel, Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative fiction

Similar
  
John Barnes books, Thousand Cultures series books, Other books

The Merchants of Souls is a 2001 science fiction novel by John Barnes and the third book in the Thousand Cultures series.

Contents

Summary

The book follows Giraut Leones, a special agent who has been betrayed by those he thought he could trust. He has sworn off of working for the Office of Special Projects but is drawn back after discovering that a group has begun recording the personalities of the deceased and is using them for their own entertainment. This is considered an affront to Leones and many of the peoples of the Thousand Cultures, threatening to break the fragile balance in place.

Characters

  • Giraut Leones - An experienced agent and musician from Nou Occitan who was brought back from leave to address a new threat to personal liberties.
  • Raimbaut Bovalhor - A long-dead friend of Giraut, whose psypyx is installed in Giraut's brain as a witness against commercialization of psypyxes.
  • Laprada Prieczka - A young new female OSP agent, a member of the Council of Humanity, granddaughter of celebrated OSP hero Lohemo Prieczko; love interest to Raimbaut.
  • Dji - elder OSP supervisor to Giraut, Laprada, Piranesi, and Paxa; one of "Kiel's Boys," graduate of OSP Class Four along with Shan, Lohemo Prieczko and Sir Qrala.
  • Shan - elder OSP supervisor and friend to Giraut, Margaret, Qrala, Paxa, Piranesi, and other OSP agents.
  • Piranesi Alcott & Paxa Prytanis - Military husband and artistic wife; both are OSP agents from Hedon, the so-called "Pleasure Culture."
  • Margaret - Giraut's ex-wife from Caledony, the culture where they met and fell in love, and then both chose to join the OSP.
  • Sir Qrala - an elder experienced OSP agent; estranged friend of Shan and Dji from their days as "Kiel's Boys."

    • Reception

    Critical reception for The Merchants of Souls was mixed, with the Orlando Sentinel giving it a positive review while Publishers Weekly panned the novel. Kirkus Reviews also gave a mixed review, stating that it was a "Soporifically plotted story of ideas that, despite some sly social satire, gets lost in interminable talk about human identity, truth, and memory." In contrast, Locus Online named it one of their recommended reads of 2001 for science fiction novels and nominated it for a 2002 Locus Award.

    References

    The Merchants of Souls Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA