Festival Moon — C.J. Cherryh

Merovin, the world that C.J. Cherryh built, a low-tech, inhospitable planet where the human survivors of a colony nearly destroyed by an enigmatic alien race still dwell, salvaging what they can, while awaiting the return of the alien menace or rediscovery by the Terrans who abandoned them in that long-ago time of terror.

And in Merovingen, the fantastic canal city, where the wealthy and powerful reside in the highest towers, and beggars, spies, thieves, and boaters like Altair Jones ply the highly polluted interlacing waterways below, intrigue, thievery and revolution are the very breath of life. And now, with the Festival of the Scouring approaching, C.J. Cherryh has invited some of today's finest writers into Merovingen, to weave together this tale of Festival Moon, a time of mystery and murder, of power games both high and low, a Festival after which this world will never be quite the same again....