Flying in Place

Emma, a twelve-year-old child, escapes from the subtle horrors of her life by learning to walk on the ceiling and to fly away from herself. A first novel.

Palwick, Susan

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Tor Books/ Tom Doherty Associates

The three basic human needs are food, water…and shelter. But in the late 21st century, compassion is a crime. You can get your memories wiped just for trying to help.
Papa Preston Walford's world doesn't allow for coincidences. Accidents. Secrets in the backs of closets. Or the needs of his own daughter.
Meredith Preston has reason to seek shelter. She needs protection from the monsters in her mind, in her history, in her family. And the great storms of a changing climate have made literal shelter imperative.
When a cutting-edge, high-tech house, designed by a genius with a unique connection to Meredith, overcomes its programming to give shelter to a homeless man in a storm, from its closets emerge the revelations of a past too painful to remember.
In the world of Susan Palwick's Shelter, perception is about to meet reality, and reality has mud all over it. The truth won't make you happy, but it may just make you whole.

Shelter

Literature & Fiction

United States

Tor Books

Once in a while, a first novel arrives like a bolt of lightning, commanding attention with an explosion of power, grace, and light. Flying in Place is such a book. As unflinching as The Lovely Bones, as startling as Beloved, it is a work to bear witness - with bravery and compassion - for the experience of millions of readers and their loved ones. Emma is 12, a perfectly normal girl, in a perfectly normal home. With a perfectly normal father...who comes into her bedroom every night in the hours before dawn. Emma will do anything to escape. From the visits. From the bodies. From the breathing. Even go walking on the ceiling - which is where Emma meets Ginny, the sister who died before she was born. Ginny, who knows things. Ginny, who can fly....

Demco Media

Clarkesworld is a Hugo Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art. Our September 2014 issue contains:  Original Fiction by Susan Palwick ("Weather"), JY Yang ("Patterns of a Murmuration, In Billions of Data Points"), and Xia Jia ("Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy"). Classic stories by Brendan DuBois ("Falling Star"), Leigh Kennedy ("Her Furry Face"), and Peter Watts ("Giants"). Non-fiction by Mark Cole (Why Science Fiction Isn't Always to Blame), an interview with Ann Leckie, an Another Word column by Alethea Kontis, and an editorial/special announcement by Neil Clarke.

Clarkesworld Issue 96 (Clarkesworld Magazine)

DuBois, Brendan

Watts, Peter

Clarke, Neil

Kennedy, Leigh

Yang, JY

Xia Jia

Science Fiction

Clarkesworld Magazine

Praised as "a deeply felt, deeply moving tale . . . chilling and finely tuned" (Publishers Weekly), Susan Palwick's first novel Flying in Place won widespread acclaim for its haunting exploration of a troubled childhood. Now, after a decade, Palwick returns with the powerful tale of a family cast out of an idyllic realm, learning to live in our own troubled world--an exciting and insightful examination of humanity in the spirit of Ursula Le Guin's The Disposessed and Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Lémabantunk, the Glorious City, is a place of peace and plenty. But it is also a land of swift and severe justice. Young Darroti has been accused of the murder of a highborn woman who had chosen the life of a Mendicant, a holy beggar whose blessing brings forgiveness. Now his entire family must share his shame, and his punishment--exile to an unknown world. Grieving for the life they have left behind, Darroti and his family find themselves in a hostile land--an all-too-familiar American future, a country under attack in a world torn by hatred and war. There, each tries to cope in their own way. Some will surrender to despair. Some will strive to preserve the old ways. Some will be lured by the new world's temptations. And some, sustained by extraordinary love, will find a way to heal the family's grief and give them hope.

The Necessary Beggar (Alex Awards (Awards))

Fantasy

Once in a while, a first novel arrives like a bolt of lightning, commanding attention with an explosion of power, grace, and light. Flying in Place is such a book. As unflinching as The Lovely Bones, as startling as Beloved, it is a work to bear witness--with bravery and compassion--for the experience of millions of readers and their loved ones. Emma is twelve, a perfectly normal girl, in a perfectly normal home. With a perfectly normal father...who comes into her bedroom every night in the hours before dawn. Emma will do anything to escape. From the visits. From the bodies. From the breathing. Even go walking on the ceiling--which is where Emma meets Ginny, the sister who died before she was born. Ginny, who knows things. Ginny, who can fly....

Necessary Beggar

Tor Trade

Melinda Soto, aged sixty-four, vacationing in Mexico, is murdered by a fellow American tourist. 
Back in her hometown of Reno, Nevada, she leaves behind her adopted son, Jeremy, whom she rescued from war-torn Guatamala when he was a toddler―just one of her many causes over the years. And she leaves behind a circle of friends: Veronique, the academic stuck in a teaching job from which she can't retire; Rosemary, who's losing her husband to Alzheimer's and who's trying to lose herself in volunteer work; Henrietta, the priest at Rosemary's and Melinda's church.
Jeremy already had a fraught relationship with his charismatic mother and the people in her orbit. Now her death is tearing him apart, and he can barely stand the rituals of remembrance that ensue among his mother's friends. Then the police reveal who killed Melinda: a Seattle teenager who flew home to his parents and drowned himself just days later.
It's too much. Jeremy's not the only one who can't deal. Friendships fray. But the unexpected happens: an invitation to them all, from the murderer's mother, to come to Seattle for his memorial. It's ridiculous. And yet, somehow, each of them begins to see in it a chance to heal. Aided, in peculiar ways, by Jeremy's years-long obsession with the comic-book hero Comrade Cosmos, and the immense cult of online commentary it's spawned.
Shot through with feeling and inventiveness, Susan Palwick's Mending the Moon is a novel of the odd paths that lead to home.

Mending the Moon

Susan Palwick, author of the remarkable Flying in Place, now returns with a compelling new novel of a family cast out of an idyllic realm, learning to live in our own troubled world. With its richly imagined portrayal of a lost culture, complete with poetry and fables, traditions and customs, and its searing yet sympathetic view of own society as seen through new eyes, The Necessary Beggar is an compelling examination of humanity and the redemptive power of love, in the spirit of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed and Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Lémabantunk, the Glorious City, is a place of peace and plenty, of festivals and flowers, bejeweled streets and glittering waterfalls. But it is also a land of severe justice. Darroti, a young merchant, has been accused of an unforgiveable crime - the brutal murder a highborn woman. Now, in keeping with the customs of their world, his entire family must share in his punishment - exile to the unknown world that lies beyond a mysterious gate. Passing through that gate, and grieving for the life they leave behind, Darroti and his family find themselves in a harsh and hostile land - America just a few years hence, a country under attack in a world torn by hatred and warfare. Unable to explain their origin, they are rapidly remanded to an internment camp in the Nevada desert, along with thousands of other refugees. There they endeavor to make sense of this ill-fated land where strange gods are worshipped, and living things like flowers and insects are not respected. After Darroti, unable to bear his disgrace, takes his life, the rest of the family escapes to the outside world. There, each tries to cope in their own way. Timbor, the head of the clan, troubled by the restless spirit of his departed son who comes to him in dreams, does his best to preserve the old ways, and avoid conflict with the outsiders. His eldest son Masofo, who calls himself Max, is lured by the worldly temptations of this new world, while his second son, Erolorit, strives to make a decent life for his family. But it is Timor's granddaughter, Zamatryna, who is the quickest to adjust to this strange new world. It is she who is the first to learn its language, to adopt its customs, to accept this place as her new home. And, as the strain of adapting themselves to this new life begins to tear the family apart, it is Zama, sustained by the extraordinary love of an ordinary young man, who finds a way to heal their grief and give them new hope.

The Necessary Beggar

Tor Science Fiction

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Palwick, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Palwick, Susan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Palwick, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Flying in Place

Shelter

Flying in Place

Clarkesworld Issue 96 (Clarkesworld Magazine)

The Necessary Beggar (Alex Awards (Awards))

Flying in Place

Necessary Beggar

Mending the Moon

The Necessary Beggar

Mending the Moon