Under Imperial Law, slavery in any form has never been illegal. It has always been left to the Houses that ruled the stars to decide for themselves whether they would allow fellow man to be enslaved to another, it being a matter for House Law. Jebediah Lockwood is an augmented borgite born free to an agricultural family on a world in the deep south of the galaxy. His happy childhood is destroyed when - just as the insurgency against the False Emperor is having its success on distant Mars - the humanists come to his homeworld. So begins a chain of events as seemingly inexorable and unbreakable as the slavery he finds himself living his life within. In the galactic east a new sport is gaining traction in the chaos following the start of the Age of Secession. It is perfect for a person like Jebediah and those he comes to travel with, those freed from slavery who know how to pilot walkers and have nothing to lose any more. The Gladiator Games are as vicious as those who fight within them, with death just as likely as victory. They are fighting for high purses if they win, but with equally high stakes if they lose. Jebediah's prize will be the money to buy his sister's freedom, a freedom she may not want. They are free to fight and free to die. They are the Unchained. About The Series This is a standalone book, but part of a wider series. Age of Secession wants to entertain, challenge and introduce people to science fiction based on politics, society and real-life concerns, and imaginatively address topics relevant to today whilst telling a gripping story. Whilst some books come close, very few quite manage to bring the right mix of entertainment with some of the more world-shaking events we experience today. Age of Secession leads the way in showing that you can have a star-spanning operatic drama with some very common human failings and successes with stories not out of place in novels of romance, horror, crime, thriller and suspense, mixing all these genres in the best traditions of imaginative science fiction. But it also shows that as well as telling a ripping yarn, a gripping story can also deal with serious modern-day issues - such as the strong themes of social inequality and political upheaval amongst others - that ride underneath the plots. Whether you want to just kick back, imagine you were your favourite character and enjoy the tale, or you want to see in these books the reflections of the very real things that happen today, occurred in the past, and might feature in the future, Age of Secession is the series that you want to read.