The Restoration Game

There is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know - she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organisers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up games company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: a game inspired by The Krassniad, an epic folk tale concocted by Lucy's mother Amanda, who studied there in the 1980s. Lucy knows Amanda is a spook. She knows her great-grandmother Eugenie also visited the country in the '30s, and met the man who originally collected Krassnian folklore, and who perished in Stalin's terror. As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds the open secrets of her family's past, the darker secrets of Krassnia's past - and hints about the crucial role she is destined to play in The Restoration Game...

Reviews

• "Whether other writers can duplicate this trick while also aping MacLeod’s mix of sly humour, deftly drawn characters and intricate plotting is, of course, entirely another matter – this is a writer at the peak of his powers." Ian Berriman, SFX
• "...the result is a clever mystery that combines a dark tone with a lightness of touch and moments of humour." Total Sci-Fi Online