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! 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.

Cresciuta da una madre mezza pazza che amava dilettarsi con la magia, Mori Phelps ha cercato e trovato rifugio in due mondi. Nel corso dell’infanzia, trascorsa in Galles, lei e la sorella gemella giocavano tra gli spiriti che costruivano le loro case tra le rovine industriali. In seguito al tentativo della madre di piegare gli spiriti a fini oscuri con risultati mortali, Mori fugge via, e finisce in un collegio inglese, sotto la tutela del padre mai visto prima. La sua mente trova libertà e promessa nei romanzi di fantascienza, che diventano i suoi compagni più stretti, fino a quando non incontra, forse proprio grazie alla magia, una comunità di persone davvero affini, e chissà? Anche l’amore. Mori si troverà dunque ad affrontare una duplice sfida: quella della crescita, e quella del dolore; e dovrà cercare di fare i conti con ciò che è accaduto senza cadere preda dell’oscurità.

The goddess Athene attempts to create a utopia with robots and time travelers in this science fiction fantasy by a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author. "Walton''s no-nonsense prose and dialogue are the kind of thing I can read anywhere, in any situation, and fall into a world of intelligent people speaking to each other intelligently in interesting ways. . . . Brilliant, compelling, and frankly unputdownable." —NPR Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand 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. The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer''s daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D., is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her. Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human. Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell . . . "A remarkable novel of ideas. . . . Superb." — Booklist (Starred Review) "A brilliant and haunting meditation on utopia, power, and consent—with deeply engaging characters and consummately clever world-building. Jo Walton has given us another winner." —Susan Palwick

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.

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure. 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 classes never faltered, while British ships ferried “undesirables” across the Channel to board the cattle cars headed east. In three brilliant novels set between the late 1940s and the early 1960s of this alternate world, Jo Walton explores how a free society can become an unfree one, how easily traditional powers-that-be can accommodate themselves to tyranny, and what a difference a few courageous men and women can make. Alternately charming, heartstopping, and astonishingly deft, this trilogy is a work of total relevance to our modern age. This new Tor Essentials edition of the Small Change trilogy includes a new introduction by J. Bradford de Long, author of Slouching Toward Utopia and one-time Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

Finalist for 2017 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature For the first time, Jo Walton’s critically acclaimed, genre-defying trilogy Thessaly—The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, and Necessity—is available in softcover, in a single-volume trade paperback omnibus The goddess Athena thought she was creating a utopia. Populate the island of Thera with extraordinary men, women, and children from throughout history, and watch as the mortals forge a harmonious society based on the tenets of Plato’s Republic. Meanwhile, following his famous spurning by a nymph, Athena''s ever-curious brother Apollo has decided to live a mortal human life on the island, in an effort to gain a better understanding of humanity. But as both Athena and Apollo soon discover, even the Just City is susceptible to the iron law that nothing ever happens as planned. And there are sins in Paradise, mortal and divine, far graver than the everyday ones. In an epic encompassing sandy Mediterranean shores and the farthest reaches of the galaxy, Victorian England and Renaissance Italy, gods and humans argue, fight, love, and most of all, learn from one another, in critically-acclaimed author Jo Walton''s unique exploration of the human condition,Thessaly. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Morwenna Phelps, qui préfère qu''on l''appelle Mori, est placée par son père dans l''école privée d''Arlinghurst, où elle se remet du terrible accident qui l''a laissée handicapée et l''a privée à jamais de sa sœur jumelle, Morganna. Là, Mori pourrait dépérir, mais elle découvre le pouvoir des livres de science-fiction. Delany, Zelazny, Le Guin et Silverberg peuplent ses journées, la passionnent. Un jour, elle reçoit une photo où sa silhouette a été brûlée... Que peut faire une adolescente de seize ans quand son pire ennemi, potentiellement mortel, est sa propre mère ? Elle peut chercher dans les livres le courage de combattre. Ode à la différence, journal intime d''une adolescente qui parle aux fées, Morwenna est aussi une plongée inquiétante dans le folklore gallois. Ce roman touchant et bouleversant a été récompensé par les plus grands prix littéraires du genre : le prix Hugo, le prix Nebula et le British Fantasy Award.

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.

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.

In the summer of 2019, novelist Jo Walton went on a trip around France and Northern Italy visiting the homes of Voltaire, Diderot, Petrarch, and Pico della Mirandola. This is the account of where and why she went, what she ate, thought, and experienced on the way. This novella-length account was composed on the equivalent days of 2020.

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.

Lifelode is the Mythopoeic Award Winning novel from Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning author Jo Walton. It was published in hardcover in 2009 by NESFA Press and is now available for the first time as an ebook. At its heart, Lifelode is the story of a comfortable manor house family. The four adults of the household are happily polygamous, each fulfilling their ‘lifelode’ or life’s purpose: Ferrand is the lord of the manor, his sweetmate Taveth runs the household, his wife Chayra makes ceramics, and Taveth’s husband Ranal works the farm. Their children are a joyful bunch, running around in the sunshine days of the harvest and wondering what their own lifelodes will be. Their lives changed with the arrival of two visitors to Applekirk: Jankin the scholar and Hanethe, Ferrand’s great grandmother and the former lord of the manor, who has been living for many generations in the East, a place where the gods walk and yeya (magic) is so powerful that those who wield it are not quite human.

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.

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. Souvent comparé au Choix de Sophie de William Styron, Mes vrais enfants est considéré comme le chef-d’œuvre de Jo Walton.

Isles of the Mighty Standing stones. Headhunting and human sacrifice. Lusty kings and cattle-raiding queens. Naked warriors painted blue. Mysterious druids and crafty Sidhe. The Celtic world was full of strange enchantments and bloody battles. Enter a world of feasting and fighting, where magic is everywhere and glory is everything. In this book you''ll find: Tales of the ancient Irish and Welsh heroes. A wealth of Celtic character types, with plenty of new advantages and disadvantages - including gesas, the mystic prophecies and taboos that ruled the life and death of every Celt. The Druids: their arcane teachings and enigmatic magic. A new Druidic tree-magic system including the standard GURPS spells, plus new Celtic ones, grouped according to ancient natural categories. The uncanny powers of the Sidhe, children and fathers of gods, and rules for creating characters with Faerie blood and powers of their own . . . Willful weapons, magical and powerful, with their own personalities and motives. Return to a time when a battle or a wonder was around every corner, and the Otherworld was only a step away . . .

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. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Engaged, passionate, and consistently entertaining, An Informal History of the Hugos is a book about the renowned science fiction award for the many who enjoyed Jo Walton''s previous collection of writing from Tor.com, the Locus Award–winning What Makes This Book So Great. 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. Walton''s cheerfully opinionated and vastly well-informed posts 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—a kind of nonfiction companion to Among Others. It''s very good. It''s great." —New York Times–bestselling author Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing on What Makes This Book So Great

“Starlings isn’t really a short-story collection. It’s something better: a written showreel, illustrating yet again that [Walton’s] imagination stretches to the stars (or the starlings), and that she’s endlessly inventive in finding new methods to express it.”—NPR Books An ancient coin cyber-spies on lovers and thieves. The magic mirror sees all but can do nothing. A cloned savior solves a fanatically-inspired murder. Three Irish siblings thieve treasures with bad poetry and the aid of the Queen of Cats. With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic—rising from the every day into the universe itself.

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.

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 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 deuxième 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.