This note contains spoilers for the book.

A standalone work. In the far future, with Earth mostly depopulated by the Governors (AIs apparently, that enforce small ecological impact; they took the Earth down to 50 million people) and a number of other planets populated, two lovers (which is illegal for them; homosexuality is back out of fashion in the Coalition) are brought back together for another mission, on a planet where men are thought to be too violent and emotional to be full citizens.

There are wheels within wheels, layers of betrayals by about everybody, quite a lot of character development, lots of action, lots of politica, and a reasonably satisfactory outcome.

I enjoyed this more than the Jenny Casey books; those had things I could describe as all sorts of fun, but this one was more fun to read. Even though the carnival of the title plays little role in the story.