Helen Darney is one of 50,000 women serving as colonial officials and officers in the Aventian Empire a land and colonial empire. Helen does not particularly like her assignment as she wanted to be viceroy of the Aventian East Indies, but as she lacks the seniority for that position she is stuck as Governor of Sumdara, quite disruptive place with cannibals, bloody rituals, and rival tribes and petty kingdoms. She loves fishing and despises journalists.