The most persistent human challenge isn't external, but internal: figuring yourself out. For Saitou Jinko, a young boy living on the outskirts of Shirakawa-go in the late 1800s during a civil war, that challenge is a mental cage. He’s tired of existing without purpose, a ghost in his own life. ...

In the twenty-ninth century, the Terran Federation spans the stars—an empire of reason, order, and quiet tyranny. Its power rests upon the Sunguard Special Agents: immortal biotic soldiers, living machines sworn by genetic code to serve in perpetuity as the vanguard of humanity. But when an entir...