A dark and incisive collection of speculative short stories set in an
alternate future of interstellar space travel, robots, mythical
creatures, and the uncanny.
"Newland easily engages readers with complex world-building, well-shaded
characters, and stories as entertaining as they are meaningful. It's no
small feat to so immediately and repeatedly appeal to readers' hearts
and minds, and Newland's mastery of short-format storytelling is sure to
impress. Speculative fiction fans won't be able to put this down."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Newland's writing is in league with a host of SF subgenres, from pulpy
space opera to N.K. Jemisin-style Afrofuturism to Jeff VanderMeer-esque
eco-fiction. But his chief skill is weaving those tropes into stories
that are both wildly speculative and on the news . . . Wide-ranging and
deeply imaginative; Newland is equally at home in council flats and deep
space."
--Kirkus Reviews
In his exquisite first collection of speculative fiction, Courttia
Newland envisages an alternate future as lived by the African
diaspora.
Kill parties roam the streets of a post-apocalyptic world; a matriarchal
race of mer creatures depends on interbreeding with mortals to survive;
mysterious seeds appear in cities across the world, growing into the
likeness of people in their vicinity.
Through transfigured bodies and impossible encounters, Newland brings a
sharp, fresh eye to age-old themes of the human capacity for greed,
ambition, and self-destruction, but ultimately of our strength and
resilience.
