ISBN 0-586-21388-0 (UK pbk)

"In the far-distant future, humanity has created a glittering interstellar empire where need and sickness have been wiped out by advanced technology: bioengineering, nanomachines, virtual reality. But not everyone is capable of mastering this hi-tech existence...

"So a special kind of human has evolved: the Aristoi, the Best: men and women of exceptional intelligence and creativity. And, as in Plato's vision, they have the care of the Demos, the people, foremost in their minds. They are the absolute, but benevolent, creators of new empires and controllers of technology and all its fruits.

"Until an Aristos becomes so committed to a genetic theory that he creates a secret world, accountable to no-one, and he will kill to keep his secret safe..." [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1993]

"In Aristoi , I set out to write a galaxy-spanning far-future adventure that also projected every technology I could think of into that future." --Walter Jon Williams (from an interview in Locus , Issue 428, Vol.37, No.3, September 1996).

"One of the best novels depicting what virtual reality might develop into in the distant future". --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1995).

Must read.
Highly recommended.