Liege-Killer

Christopher Hinz

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Liege-Killer won the Compton Crook Award. In Christopher Hinz's postapocalyptic sci-fi trilogy, the Paratwa are genetically modified assassins who occupy two bodies telepathically connected and controlled by a single vicious mind. Humanity's only hope for survival is to defeat these seemingly unstoppable warriors. Two hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse forced humanity to flee Earth, twenty-fourth-century humans still remember the most feared warriors—the genetically enhanced Paratwa—believed extinct since that holocaust. Or are they? Someone has revived the legendary Paratwa named Reemul, also known as the Liege-Killer, from stasis and sent him to terrorize and subjugate the peaceful orbital colonies of Earth. A mysterious virus infecting the humans' database signals the return of their dreaded enemies—and this new generation of Paratwa is far deadlier than the old, forming a powerful caste of fighter known as the Ash Ock. The threat of imminent attack has prompted the revival of two Paratwa hunters from stasis, Nick and Gillian, who may be the only ones who can stop the Ash Ock from dominating the last holdouts of humanity. The Irryan colonists prepare to defend themselves against invasion by the Paratwa. As renegade Paratwa Gillian is wrestling with internal turmoil over her identity and the long-ago murder of her other half, Nick uncovers the Ash Ock's startling true intentions and races to stop them.