books guide
ghost devices
the new adventures (virgin) #068
Written by: Simon Bucher-Jones
Publication Date: 6 November 1997
ISBN: 0 426 20514 6
Pages: 249
back cover blurb
'In the Evening, when the sky was the colour of burnt umber, the factories crawled down to the continental shelf to drink'
The Spire is an inhuman artefact, a construction almost three hundred miles high. But is is more than just a big dumb object. Those close to it can look into the future - a future which is going to be srriving sooner than they think, and which can be as bad as can be.
In the here and how, Professor Bernice Summerfield, doyenne of twenty-sixth century archaeology and seedy space-port bars, is used to seeing strange things in her rooms. So it takes the unexpected arrival of an angel to get her away from increasingly desperate professional deadlines and off to investigate one of the seven-hundered and seventy-six wonders of the galaxy.
However, Benny is no the only one interested in the Spire. A mysterious race of weaponsmiths, a mutogenic assassin and a sect of fanatically anti-religious reptiles all have their reason for learning - or concealing - the structure's secrets. And, as she struggles to unlock this ancient mystery, it soon becomes clear that the life of an eccentric professor is of very little consequence indeed.