The Ruby Dice (Saga of the Skolian Empire)
Catherine Asaro has an M.A. in physics, and a Ph.D. in chemical physics, both from Harvard. She has done research at the University of Toronto, The Max Planck Institute, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. A former ballet and jazz dancer, she founded the Mainly Jazz Dance program at Harvard and now teaches at the Caryl Maxwell Classical Ballet. She has written ten novels in the popular Skolian Saga, the latest beingSchism(Tor, 2004) as well as two near-future technothrillers,The Veiled WebandThe Phoenix Code. She currently runs Molecudyne Research and lives in Maryland with her husband and daughter.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.