Anna Gibbons is one of 50,000 women serving as colonial officials and officers in the Avalon Empire a colonial empire. Aswan is one of the largest and richest colonies of the Empire, second to Gahandra. Gibbons has to try to maintain order in a colony with many different groups and religions, her capital the subject of many riots and murders. and hates self-righteous intellectuals, nosy journalists, religious zealots and stuffy bureaucrats