The novel “Queen of Candesce” by Karl Schroeder was published for the first time in 2007. It’s the second novel of Virga and and the sequel to “Sun of Suns“.

Lady Venera Fanning ended up in Spyre, an ancient cylindrical habitat that’s decaying, in all senses. Over the centuries the local society has fragmented into a myriad of micro- states with an unstable political and social balance. The habitat is slowly going to pieces too and now no one is able to repair it.

Venera Fanning finds herself involved in an intrigue that goes beyond Spyre. Her experience in the field of intrigue is remarkable but must quickly understand who around her can be an ally and who will be her enemy. She realizes that Spyre’s society, despite all its internal turmoil, is sclerotic and to give it the jolt she needs she must follow a bold plan.

In “Sun of Suns”, Karl Schroeder introduced Virga, an artificial planet and hollow, a giant balloon whose inhabitants live inside it. Virga’s population is fragmented into a multitude of small nations situated on asteroids and large wheels that use centrifugal force to simulate gravity.

At the end of “Sun of Suns”, Venera Fanning was adrift within Virga. “Queen of Candesce” is the direct continuation of the first novel and is focused on that character, which I think was the most interesting for her personality ambiguous to say the least and the mysteries of her past.

In theory, “Queen of Candesce” can be read independently from the “Sun of Suns” because the two novels tell two well separated stories. However, I think you’d lose something concerning the construction of the character of the protagonist Venera Fanning, who has a development in the second novel that is stronger if combined with that of the first novel.

In “Sun of Suns” , Venera Fanning got in possession of a key that can provide enormous power in Virga but when she tries to get news of her husband she’s told that he was killed. In Garth Diamandis, a resident of Spyre, she finds an apparently unlikely ally in her plot for revenge and in her scheming she upsets the balance of the whole habitat.

While “Sun of Suns” was a great adventure in a large part of Virga, “Queen of Candesce” is set almost completely in Spyre, which is in many ways a small world within the larger world of Virga. This habitat is very intriguing, with its towers, its elevators, the holes in its structure and its horses. Its strange micro-nations are sometimes single buildings where families live isolated from the rest of Spyre.

Although the story is set almost entirely in this environment relatively small, there’s still a considerable amount of action so after starting a bit slow the pace is generally fast. The battles aren’t fought between aircraft but between the equivalents of the infantry, not among asteroids and habitats but among buildings and gardens.

Another positive element of “Queen of Candesce” is a good balance between action, intrigue and even introspection with the latter inevitably mainly concerning Venera Fanning. The protagonist is forced to make use of all her skills to come out of a complex situation. Of course, she does it her way with many consequences for Spyre and beyond.

All subsequent events and the meeting with many new people has an influence also on Venera herself. The need to collaborate with other people who have their dreams and their agendas but also some discoveries made in the course of the novel force her to an introspection greater than that she was used to.

Venera Fanning is the absolute protagonist of “Queen of Candesce” and is the only character already appeared in “Sun of Suns” so she’s inevitably the best developed. Among the many characters in the novel there are still some others who are well developed.

Personally, I preferred “Sun of Suns” because it explored Virga and its mysteries whereas “Queen of Candesce” is more focused on Spyre. Beyond this subjective preference, I found this second novel overall very good as well so I recommend reading it, preferably together with the first one.