The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1) (80 page)

SFReviews.net

‘He builds a steampunk future familiar from other sources – zeppelins, primitive automobiles and typewriters, etc. – yet with its own unique twists . . . Stross
is having great fun with these books, and it’s contagious’

SciFi.com

‘The Merchant Princes
is easily one of the finest, most involved and inventive science-fiction series on the market. A very highly recommended series from a master
storyteller’

CivilianReader
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THE BLOODLINE FEUD

Charles Stross
was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To
date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C.
Clarke and Nebula Awards. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages.

Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feòrag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

By Charles Stross

The Merchant Princes series

The Bloodline Feud

(Originally published as
The Family Trade
and
The Hidden Family
)

The Traders’ War

(Originally published as
The Clan Corporate
and
The Merchants’ War
)

The Revolution Trade

(Originally published as
The Revolution Business
and
The Trade of Queens
)

Acknowledgments

No novelist works in a creative vacuum. Whatever we do, we owe a debt to the giants upon whose shoulders we stand. This book might not have happened if I hadn’t read the
works of H. Beam Piper and Roger Zelazny.

Nor would this book have been written without the intervention of several other people. My agent, Caitlin Blaisdell, nudged me to make a radical change of direction from my previous novels.
David Hartwell of Tor encouraged me further, and my wife, Feòrag, lent me her own inimitable support while I worked on it.

Finally, I’d like to thank all those (too numerous to name) who helped by test-reading and typo-spotting at various times in the history of this book.

The Family Trade
first published 2004 by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, NY
First published in Great Britain 2007 by Tor

The Hidden Family
first published 2005 by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, NY
First published in Great Britain 2008 by Tor

This electronic edition published 2013 by Tor
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-230-77173-4

Copyright © Charles Stross 2013

The right of Charles Stross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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