The End of the Empire

With a tip of the hat to the golden age of science fiction, (and in particular the popular series of novels by Poul Anderson about the doomed but noble Dominic Flandry), this novel is set in the last days of a corrupt and doomed interstellar empire; an empire considerably seedier and more down at the heels that most fictional grand galactic empires. The main character is an intelligence operative who preserves a perverse sense of obligation to his nearly nonexistent government, and aids in the cause by subverting an anarco-syndicalist agricultural planet in order to give the government a little more breathing room. Clever engineering and political speculation throughout.