IMPERIAL ASSASSINATION! Mere hours after the coronation, Gail Anne Burke - the Empress Arsinoe - is struck down and lay dying. The attack was by the unlikeliest and most unexpected of methods. Tracking down the method is the first order of business.

But who is responsible? The enemies of the Throne, now bent on reform, are almost too numerous to count. The sector governors, estranged from the Throne and unwilling to give up their power. The old nobilities of the Alliance nations, yearning for royal status once more.

And the hidden enemy, the subtle enemy, the enemy behind the scenes: the plutocratic families of the old Democracy of Planets. Wealthy, powerful, and bent on bringing down the Empire that defeated them three centuries before.

INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND

What's EMPIRE: Resistance about?

In EMPIRE: Renewal, Emperor Augustus VI initiated massive reforms with the help of historian James Ardmore and Imperial Marine Gail Burke. The things that needed to be reformed were primarily preferences for bureaucrats and special interests. Those reforms generated resistance among those groups, which boils over on the coronation of Ardmore and Burke as the Emperor Ptolemy and Empress Arsinoe.

And they assassinate Burke?

Major spoilers are possible. I'll just say that the cover scene is right out of the book.

So what does Ardmore do?

The Emperor's first knee-jerk response is to kill everyone and anyone who might have been responsible. He's a historian, and he takes the long view. Of course, in the long term, everyone's dead, the rest is a matter of timing. Historians can be among the most ruthless of rulers. Gordon R. Dickson said it best in Tactics Of Mistake: "Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger."

Wow. So the Emperor goes after the bad guys in a big way.

Yes, but in an unexpected way as well. EMPIRE: Resistance takes many twists and turns along the way. Things are not as the Emperor - and the reader - expect. Since I don't know what happens until I write it, it surprised me, too.

The cover blurb lays out the bad guys. Who are the good guys?

Assisting the Throne we have the Imperial Investigations Office, the Zoo, the Co-Consul and his wife, Franz Becker, and the Department, which is the reconstituted Section Six. So Tom Pitney is back, as is Troy Donahue.

So after they take out the bad guys, what's left for the next Empire book?

EMPIRE is written as a series of trilogies, and EMPIRE: Resistance is the middle book of the Renewal Trilogy. There will be work left to be done in EMPIRE: Resurgence to complete the trilogy.

What's next for EMPIRE after EMPIRE: Resurgence?

Next up is the Section Six Trilogy from Stephanie Osborn. That's getting under way as I write this.