<b>From the back cover of the Baen first edition:</b> "Doomsday came about every five years... Someone out there really hated humans. Twenty years have passed since Shiva I first swept aside Earth's crude defenses and rained down destruction. Now Shiva V has entered the Solar System, more powerful than any of its predecessors.
<p>The Shiva cannot be destroyed by fleets of ships, we tried, and it was the fleets that were destroyed. It cannot be defeated by a clandestinely developed superweapon based on new principles of physics: no such weapon exists. It cannot be defeated by a forceful American President and his faithful generals: they do not know what to do.
<p>There is only one way to defeat a Shiva: get inside and kill it. Once again, in the personae of five champions, four billion of us are about to do just that."
| Year | Award | Category | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Prometheus Award | Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian SF Novel | Nominee/Finalist |
