OK, so this Schroeder guy who I had never even heard of a year ago is now one of my favorite SF writers. I would not call him a "crossover" writer however; this is strictly for nerds. But nerds are cool, right?
..right?

Anyway, this is the second one in a series, obviously, and the deal with this Virga thing is that it's kind of an inside-out planet, with a big man-made sun in the middle, and a bunch of littler suns farther out, and then a sort of skin around the whole thing, so it's like a balloon in space with the atmosphere inside, if that makes sense.

And so there are all these like, floating cities, and gravity is sort of a commodity, so poor people tend to have long skinny legs and arms because they couldn't afford to grow up in somewhere with normal gravity. Anyway, this book is all about this woman who is WILY! and an aristocrat, and she has migraines, and secret plans for world domination, and she's also hot. but mean.
So she ends up on this one city/country place (through a series of events that took place in the first book, and I mostly forget what they were) and through her WILES tries to take over the city/country.

It's all very elegant and sort of steampunk-y, if you're into that, and it reminds me a little bit of the Gormenghast books. But with more action! And less weird.