Michael Swanwick - Chasing the Phoenix (Darger & Surplus #2, epub)[j_ray]

In the distant future, Surplus arrives in China dressed as a Mongolian
shaman, leading a yak which carries the corpse of his friend, Darger.
The old high-tech world has long since collapsed, and the artificial
intelligences that ran it are outlawed and destroyed. Or so it seems.

Darger and Surplus, a human and a genetically engineered dog with human
intelligence who walks upright, are a pair of con men and the heroes of
a series of prior Swanwick stories. They travel to what was once China
and invent a scam to become rich and powerful. Pretending to have
limited super-powers, they aid an ambitious local warlord who dreams of
conquest and once again reuniting China under one ruler. And, against
all odds, it begins to work, but it seems as if there are other forces
at work behind the scenes. Chasing the Phoenix is a sharp, slick, witty
science fiction adventure that is hugely entertaining from Michael
Swanwick, one of the best SF writers alive.

Title: Chasing the Phoenix
Series: Darger & Surplus, Book 2
Author: Michael Swanwick
Published: August 11, 2015, by Tor
Language: English
Genre: Science Fiction
ISBN-10: 0765380900
ISBN-13: 978-0765380906
Length: 320 pages