Deborah Rabinowitz lives in a future when we've contacted other life forms, but interstellar distances make it impossible to visit them physically. Instead, people travel through virtual space to get from planet to planet. There are two methods of accomplishing this. The first, and most popular, is by using virtual reality (VR), commonly called "veering." Here you can create an alternate reality in which you and any companions can interact, while you physically stay in your own surroundings. The second method, which is more awkward and cumbersome is by telepresence (TP), or "teeping." This way you  physically control a robot body on a foreign world and see what it actually looks like rather than virtual scenery conceived by the host.  The only commodities that can be traded are intellectual properties such as books, art, and ideas, so she's a literary broker. She sells the publishing rights for Earth books to other worlds. And, along the way, she just so happens to come across murders she has to solve.

This book contains two novelettes, The Height of Intrigue and The Sword Unswayed, both of which originally appeared in Analog magazine in the 1990s. There may be more Rabinowitz stories one of these days--Deborah's a fascinating character. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Alien Murders.

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