-This is a stand-alone novel with material enough for six... By the halfway point, it had blown my mind twice... an audacious, genre-bending whirlwind.- -New York Times
-It reads like Snow Crash had a dance-off with Gideon the Ninth, in a world where language isn''t a virus from outer space, it''s a goddamn alien invasion.- -Charles Stross
In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire.
Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"-unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skilfully pronounced.
But Isobel-s reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from to
