A new collection from the author of Nebula Award winning A Song for a New Day and Philip K Dick Award winning Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea.
A half-remembered children’s TV show. A hotel that shouldn’t exist. A mysterious ballad. A living flag. A group of girls goes camping. Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker’s second collection brings together a seemingly eclectic group of stories that unite behind certain themes: her touchstones of music and memory are joined by stories about secret subversions and hidden messages in art, lost routes, last chances. Her stories span and transcend genre labels, looking for the truth in strange situations from possible futures to impossible pasts.
Reviews
“This remarkable collection of 12 speculative shorts from Pinsker (Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea) places celebrated favorites and hidden gems side by side. The volume is nearly bookended by two of the author’s best known and most lauded works: the deliciously unsettling opener “Two Truths and a Lie” and the formally playful penultimate tale “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,” both of which won both Hugo and Nebula awards. Perhaps even more exciting, however, are the pieces that received less fanfare upon original publication, like “I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise,” a lyrical collage that gathers musicians and writers from different eras in New York City and brings them together for a single ecstatic night, and “Remember This for Me,” a poignant tale of an artist whose muse is faithful even if her memory isn’t. The collection closes with a thrilling original novelette “Science Facts!” about a backpacking trip that grows increasingly disquieting. The result is sure to beguile speculative fiction fans—and anyone who appreciates a well-crafted story.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Praise for Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea
“Compelling science fiction and fantasy stories, many featuring LGBTQIA characters, some about music. Anyone with a common name will appreciate this collection’s culminating story, ‘And Then There Were (N-One).’” — Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, Best Books of 2019
“When I got to the last page I was already looking forward to rereading them. Highly recommended.”—Charles de Lint, The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction
“Compelling science fiction and fantasy.” — Des Moines Register
“Sarah Pinsker’s debut short story collection is speculative and strange, exploring such wide-ranging scenarios as a young man receiving a prosthetic arm with its own sense of identity, a family welcoming an AI replicate of their late Bubbe into their home, or an 18th century seaport town trying to survive a visit by a pair of sirens —all while connecting them in a book that feels cohesive. The stories are insightful, funny, and imaginative, diving into the ways humans might invite technology into their relationships.” — Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed
“This was my first time reading Pinsker, and she BLEW MY MIND. . . . These 13 stories are wildly original and, frankly, jaw-dropping. A man’s new prosthetic arm dreams that it is a road in Colorado; the dream children of childless parents sun themselves on the rocks like seals; a rock star washes up on an island, where she is rescued by a recluse. So. Many. Amazing. Stories. My favorite might be the last story, in which a bunch of Sarah Pinskers attend a writer’s conference, where one of them is murdered. Every story was unlike anything I had read before, as well as smart and fun, which is everything I want from a story collection. RUN, DON’T WALK.” — Liberty Hardy, Bookriot
“Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea cannot be recommended enough for fans of LGBT+ sci-fi and fantasy. Pinsker’s collection has such a range and depth to it storytelling and emotional resonance that the reader will be left in complete awe after reading any chosen story.” — Alexander Carrigan, Lambda Literary
“One of the year’s most anticipated collections is even better than advertised.” — Joe Sherrry, Nerds of a Feather
“A must-have first collection.” — Rich Horton, Locus
“A voice resonant with feeling and desire.” — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus
“This collection from an exciting new voice in speculative fiction is both haunting and hopeful.” —Booklist (starred review)
“This beautiful, complex debut collection assembles some of Nebula winner Pinsker’s best stories into a twisting journey that is by turns wild, melancholic, and unsettling.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A collection whose musing visions none should try to resist.” — Foreword Reviews (starred review)
Biographical Note:
Sarah Pinsker‘s first novel, A Song For A New Day, won the Nebula Award, and her first short fiction collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea won the Philip K Dick Award. She is also a singer/songwriter who toured nationally behind four albums on various independent labels. She has wrangled horses, managed grants, taught writing to college students, and tended bar badly. She lives with her wife and two rescued terriers in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on Twitter @sarahpinsker.