New Releases by Jo Walton

From two of the most acclaimed writers in the field today, a groundbreaking look at how SF and fantasy writing—and reading!—work. Jo Walton and Ada Palmer are two of the most innovative and insightful writers to emerge in the SF and fantasy genres in this century. As writers of fiction they’ve each won multiple awards. As commenters on SF and fantasy in print and in visual media, they’ve both sparked new conversations that expanded our imaginations and understanding of how SF and fantasy work, and what more it could be doing. Now, in Trace Elements, Walton and Palmer have come together to write a book-length and supremely entertaining look at modern science fiction and fantasy, at how our genre is written and how it is read, that will join nonfiction works like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Language of the Night, Samuel R. Delany’s The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud on the short shelf of titles essential to all readers of our genre. Subjects covered include the nature of genre itself, the history of SF publishing, the implicit contract between author and reader, the ways SF and fantasy disguise themselves as one another, what SF&F can learn from outside influences ranging from Shakespeare to Diderot to anime, the role of complicity in reading, the need to expand our “sphere of empathy”, and finally the need for optimism, the importance of rejecting “purity” culture, and the fact that the human story for centuries to come will be composed of hard work. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Née en 1926, Patricia Cowan finit ses jours dans une maison de retraite. Très âgée, très confuse, elle se souvient de ses deux vies. Dans l’une de ces existences, elle a épousé Mark, avec qui elle avait partagé une liaison épistolaire et platonique, un homme qui n’a pas tardé à montrer son véritable visage. Dans son autre vie, elle a enchaîné les succès professionnels, a rencontré Béatrice et a vécu heureuse avec cette dernière pendant plusieurs décennies. Dans chacune de ces vies, elle a eu des enfants. Elle les aime tous... Mais lesquels sont ses vrais enfants : ceux de l’âge nucléaire ou ceux de l’âge du progrès ? Car Patricia ne se souvient pas seulement de ses vies distinctes, elle se souvient de deux mondes où l’Histoire a bifurqué en même temps que son histoire personnelle.

Here is a small part of my soul I pulled out and shaped like this It is still bleeding, but only a little It won't mess your hands much, And you can wash them after. For years Hugo and Nebula award winning writer Jo Walton has been writing poems and posting them online, first on usenet, then on livejournal, more recently on Patreon. Some have been collected in chapbooks and in Starlings, but most of them have just stayed online. Here at last is a comprehensive collection of her poems from 1996-2020 with table of contents and an index of first lines, and arranged in thematic categories, Love Pain and Death, New Myths For Old Gold, Red As Blood, By Their Spaceships Ye Shall Know Them, Shakespeare, The News, The Turning Year, and Whimsy. Some of the poems are fantastical, others are about everyday life, or politics. If there's one thing that links Walton's very different work it's the quality of "where did that come from?" Here we have a poem about lions becoming extinct after being persecuted by martyrs, one about Henry V's conquest of Constantinople, alongside one about a skydiver friend who died and fell up into the sky. These poems, written over decades, are quirky, unpredictable, and have excellent scansion.

Or What You Will is an utterly original novel about how stories are brought forth from Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author Jo Walton. He has been too many things to count. He has been a dragon with a boy on his back. He has been a scholar, a warrior, a lover, and a thief. He has been dream and dreamer. He has been a god. But "he" is in fact nothing more than a spark of idea, a character in the mind of Sylvia Harrison, 73, award-winning author of thirty novels over forty years. He has played a part in most of those novels, and in the recesses of her mind, Sylvia has conversed with him for years. But Sylvia won't live forever, any more than any human does. And he's trapped inside her cave of bone, her hollow of skull. When she dies, so will he. Now Sylvia is starting a new novel, a fantasy for adult readers, set in Thalia, the Florence-resembling imaginary city that was the setting for a successful YA trilogy she published decades before. Of course he's got a part in it. But he also has a notion. He thinks he knows how he and Sylvia can step off the wheel of mortality altogether. All he has to do is convince her. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Tor.com's science fiction and fantasy flash fiction collection originally published in 2017 inspired by the now-iconic statement, now available in e-book format. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history. Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale. We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award–winning author delivers a magical re-imagining of the man who remade fifteenth-century Florence. Young Girolamo's life is a series of miracles. It's a miracle that he can see demons, plain as day, and that he can cast them out with the force of his will. It's a miracle that he's friends with Pico della Mirandola, the Count of Concordia. When Charles VIII of France invades northern Italy, Girolamo meets him in the field, and—miraculously—convinces him to not only spare Florence but also protect it. Now, whenever Girolamo preaches, crowds swoon. Despite the Pope's determination to bring young Girolamo to heel, he's still on the loose . . . and running Florence in all but name. And that's only the beginning. Because Girolamo Savanarola is not who —or what —he thinks he is. He will discover the truth about himself at the most startling time. And this will be only the first of his many lives.

A collection of essays about science fiction's most revered award, revealing the story of the genre's evolution, from the award-winning author. The Hugo Awards, named after pioneer science fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback, and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society, have been presented since 1953. They are widely considered the most prestigious awards in science fiction. Between 2010 and 2013, Jo Walton wrote a series of posts for Tor.com, surveying the Hugo finalists and winners from the award's inception up to the year 2000. Her contention was that each year's full set of finalists generally tells a meaningful story about the state of science fiction at that time. Engaged, passionate, and consistently entertaining, An Informal History of the Hugos presents Walton's cheerfully opinionated and vastly well-informed posts, which provoked valuable conversation among the field's historians. Now these posts, lightly revised, have been gathered into this book, along with a small selection of the comments posted by SF luminaries such as Rich Horton, Gardner Dozois, and David G. Hartwell. "A remarkable guided tour through the field." — New York Times –bestselling author Cory Doctorow

Wollen Sie die Gegenwart überschreiten und einen Blick in die Zukunft werfen, die Golkonda und Memoranda für Sie bereit halten? Stürzen Sie sich in das nächste Prognosticon, das Hiob Montag bevorsteht; wägen Sie mit Otmar Jenner ab, welche Folgen ein ewiges Leben auf die Gesellschaft haben könnte; besuchen Sie in einer außergewöhnlichen Weltraum-Operette von Erik Simon & Angela und Karlheinz Steinmüller den Trödelmond Toliman; durchforsten Sie mit Hellboy den Horror eines paranormalen Nebels. Mit exklusiven Leseproben erhalten Sie phantastische Einblicke in das Programm 2018 des Golkonda Verlags und dessen Imprint Memoranda. Dieses kostenlose E-Book enthält Leseproben zu: "Der Älteste" von Otmar Jenner "Hiobs Spiel 4: Weltmeister" von Tobias O. Meißner "Der Tag der Lerche" von Jo Walton "Hap & Leonard: Die Storys" von Joe R. Lansdale "Captain Future 06: Sternenstraße zum Ruhm" von Edmond Hamilton "H. P. Lovecraft: Leben und Werk" von S. T. Joshi "Der Himmel auf dem Mars" von Ray Bradbury (enthalten in "Science Fiction Hall of Fame – Die besten Storys 1948-1963" von Robert Silverberg (Hrsg.)) "Der vor dem Zaubrer flieht" von Peter Crowther (enthalten in "Hellboy 2: Eine offene Rechnung" von Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden) "Kane 3: Herrin der Schatten" von Karl Edward Wagner "Die Wurmloch-Odyssee" von Erik Simon & Angela und Karlheinz Steinmüller "Die Hugo Awards 2001 – 2017" von Hardy Kettlitz "SF Personality 26: Robert Silverberg – Zeiten der Wandlung" von Uwe Anton "Fortschritt und Fiasko – Die ersten 100 Jahre der deutschen Science Fiction" von Hans Frey "Die Überschreitung der Gegenwart – Science Fiction als evolutionäre Spekulation" von Wolfgang Neuhaus

An eye-opening and entertaining tale of social and financial precarity in the interplanetary future, brilliantly imagined and entirely pertinent to today. “Haunting character complexity that ultimately holds the reader captive to the tale.” —N. K. Jemisin, New York Times, onMy Real Children It's the twenty-fourth century. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system—but for most of us, life is as precarious as it was in Dickensian England. And while individuals can change their sex at will, traditional gender roles are enforced with unyielding severity. Brothers Achille, Marcantonio, and Nore have been raised rich, but after their father spends the family fortune and puts a laser to his head, they’re forced to face facts. The wealthy Luke Bailey is willing to pay top dollar for what’s left of their estate, enough to buy Achille a commission in the space Navy. But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female—Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives. Over the next two decades, the now-female Marcantonio and Nore struggle to make lives for themselves in the service of their wealthy keeper. Then the alien invasion arrives.

Bon Agornin a eu une longue et belle vie, mais sa fin est proche, il le sent. Étendu près de son trésor, il attend la mort. Toute sa famille est réunie pour vivre avec lui ses derniers instants : ses deux fils et ses trois filles, ainsi que son gendre, l'Illustre Daverak qui héritera de son domaine. Bon Agornin tient absolument à se confesser à son fils aîné, il veut partir absous de ses péchés, d'autant que ceux-ci sont immenses : afin de pouvoir devenir un dragon de soixante-dix pieds de long, capable de voler et de cracher du feu, il a dévoré son frère et sa soeur - les carcasses de boeuf ne suffisent pas pour mener à bien une telle entreprise... "Je n'ai pas eu le choix", se justifie-t-il, dans son dernier souffle. Avant d'être dévoré à son tour par ses héritiers, comme le veut la tradition chez les dragons. Hommage aux romans victoriens d'Anthony Trollope, délicieuse chronique d'une société de cannibales à écailles, Les Griffes et les Crocs a reçu le World Fantasy Award. Vous n'avez jamais lu un roman de dragons" comme celui-ci.

Jo Walton (born December 1, 1964) is a Welsh fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004.

The sequel to The Just City and The Philosopher Kings: "A glorious kitchen sink of genre, combining philosophy, time travel, aliens, and the gods." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Sunburst Award for Adult Fiction Finalist More than sixty-five years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history, and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the City's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form. Sixty years ago, the Just City schismed into five cities, each devoted to a different version of the original vision. Forty years ago, the five cities managed to bring their squabbles to a close. But in consequence of their struggle, their existence finally came to the attention of Zeus, who can't allow them to remain in deep antiquity, changing the course of human history. Convinced by Apollo to spare the Cities, Zeus instead moved everything on the island to the planet Plato, circling its own distant sun. Now, more than a generation has passed. The Cities are flourishing on Plato, and even trading with multiple alien species. Then, on the same day, two things happen. Pytheas dies as a human, returning immediately as Apollo in his full glory. And there's suddenly a human ship in orbit around Plato—a ship from Earth. "As before, Walton has done a superb job of world building and character development, giving readers a novel that both stimulates and satisfies." — Booklist (starred review)

Londres. 1949. Viola Lark a coupé les ponts avec sa noble famille pour faire carrière dans le théâtre. Quand on lui propose de jouer le rôle-titre dans un Hamlet modernisé où les genres ont été chamboulés, elle n'hésite pas une seconde. Mais l'euphorie est de courte durée, car une des actrices de la troupe vient de mourir dans l'explosion de sa maison de banlieue. Chargé de l'affaire, l'inspecteur Carmichael de Scotland Yard découvre vite que cette explosion n'est pas due à une des nombreuses bombes défectueuses du Blitz. Dans le même temps, Viola va cruellement s'apercevoir qu'elle ne peut échapper ni à la politique ni à sa famille dans une Angleterre qui embrasse la botte allemande et rampe lentement vers un fascisme de plus en plus assumé. Hamlet au paradis est le second volume de la trilogie du Subtil changement. On y retrouve l'inspecteur Carmichael, en fort mauvaise posture, ainsi que l'élégant mélange d'uchronie et de polar so british qui a fait le succès du Cercle de Farthing.

From acclaimed, award-winning author Jo Walton: Philosopher Kings, a tale of gods and humans, and the surprising things they have to learn from one another. Twenty years have elapsed since the events of The Just City. The City, founded by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, organized on the principles espoused in Plato's Republic and populated by people from all eras of human history, has now split into five cities, and low-level armed conflict between them is not unheard-of. The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as "Pythias" in the City, his true identity known only to a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it's evident, particularly to his precocious daughter Arete, that he is unhinged with grief. Along with Arete and several of his sons, plus a boatload of other volunteers--including the now fantastically aged Marsilio Ficino, the great humanist of Renaissance Florence--Pythias/Apollo goes sailing into the mysterious Eastern Mediterranean of pre-antiquity to see what they can find—possibly the man who may have caused his great grief, possibly communities of the earliest people to call themselves "Greek." What Apollo, his daughter, and the rest of the expedition will discover...will change everything.

From the acclaimed, award-winning author of AMONG OTHERS, a tale of gods and humans, and the surprising things they have to learn from one another. Created as an experiment by the time-travelling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

En 1949, ocho años después de que el círculo de Farthing negociara la «Paz con Honor» entre Gran Bretaña y la Alemania nazi, Inglaterra ha completado su deriva hacia una dictadura fascista. Cuando el infame Mark Normanby apro-vecha un asesinato político para organizar su elección como primer ministro, las últimas esperanzas para la democracia parecen agotarse. Entonces explota una bomba en un área residencial de Londres. El inspector Carmichael, de Scotland Yard, un hombre brillante aunque sometido a presiones políticas, se encarga de llevar el caso. Lo que averigua lo lleva hasta una conspiración por parte de nobles y comunistas, de leales adeptos al rey y a la patria y de implacables pistoleros del ira, para asesinar a Normanby y a su nuevo aliado, Adolf Hitler.

Este es un libro curioso y diferente. Narra la historia de una familia que se enfrenta a la muerte de su padre, de un hijo que acude a la ley para reclamar su herencia, de otro que se atormenta con la confesión que le hizo su progenitor en su lecho de muerte; de una hija que se enamora, de otra que se implica en el movimiento abolicionista y de una más que se sacrifica por su marido. Salvo que todos los protagonistas de esta historia son dragones de garras y colmillos ensangrentados... Tenemos aquí un mundo de políticos y estaciones de ferrocarril, de cortejos y mansiones en el campo... Un mundo en el que al morir un anciano, los miembros de su familia se reúnen para comerse el cuerpo del fallecido. Una sociedad en la que los miembros más poderosos se aprovechan de sus privilegios para matar y comerse a los hijos más débiles, con gran deleite y ceremonia, para hacerse más fuertes.

"Two period dramas . . . told through the science fictional conceit of alternate realities . . . All of this is rendered with Walton's usual power and beauty." — The New York Times Book Review It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know—what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead. She remembers the bomb that killed President Kennedy in 1963, and she remembers Kennedy in 1964, declining to run again after the nuclear exchange that took out Miami and Kiev. Her childhood, her years at Oxford during the Second World War—those were solid things. But after that, did she marry Mark or not? Did her friends all call her Trish, or Pat? Had she been a housewife who escaped a terrible marriage after her children were grown, or a successful travel writer with homes in Britain and Italy? And the moon outside her window: does it host a benign research station, or a command post bristling with nuclear missiles? Two lives, two worlds, two versions of modern history; each with their loves and losses, their sorrows and triumphs. Jo Walton's My Real Children is the tale of both of Patricia Cowan's lives...and of how every life means the entire world "A quiet triumph." ― Publishers Weekly "A daring tour de force." ―Ursula K. Le Guin, award-winning author of The Left Hand of Darkness

"Re-reading the classics of science fiction and fantasy"--Jacket.

Winner of the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel Startling, unusual, and yet irresistibly readable, Jo Walton's Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment. Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead. Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off... Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin. One of School Library Journal's Best Adult Books 4 Teens titles of 2011 One of io9's best Science Fiction & Fantasy books of the year 2011 At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

It's 1960, and the Axis powers dominate the world. Life goes on, because, as we see in "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction," history is driven both by big events and by small temptations... Following the appearance of her first two novels, The King's Peace and The King's Name, Jo Walton won the 2002 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Two years later she won the World Fantasy Award for Tooth and Claw. Her Small Change trilogy, comprising Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half A Crown, is set in a world in which Britain struck an early truce with Hitler in 1941; "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" is set in the America of that world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

With "understated prose and deft characterizations" a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author's imagines post-WWII England as a fascist regime ( Publishers Weekly). In 1941 the European war ended in the Farthing Peace, a rapprochement between Britain and Nazi Germany. The balls and banquets of Britain's upper class never faltered, while British ships ferried "undesirables" across the Channel to board the cattle cars headed east. Peter Carmichael is commander of the Watch, Britain's distinctly British secret police. It's his job to warn the Prime Minister of treason, to arrest plotters, and to discover Jews. The midnight knock of a Watchman is the most dreaded sound in the realm. Now, in 1960, a global peace conference is convening in London, where Britain, Germany, and Japan will oversee the final partition of the world. Hitler is once again on British soil. So is the long exiled Duke of Windsor—and the rising gangs of "British Power" streetfighters, who consider the Government "soft," may be the former king's bid to stage a coup d'état. Amidst all this, two of the most unlikely persons in the realm will join forces to oppose the fascists: a debutante whose greatest worry until now has been where to find the right string of pearls, and the Watch Commander himself.