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Published Nov 2021
300 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
A dark and incisive collection of speculative short stories set in an alternate future of interstellar space travel, robots, mythical creatures, and the uncanny.
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.
"Newland delivers a powerful collection of 15 speculative shorts that traverse time and space...Newland easily engages readers with complex worldbuilding, well-shaded characters, and stories as entertaining as they are meaningful...[his] 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
"Newland's work is tender but urgent, grounded but visionary. Risks don't frighten him. These highly imaginative, often cautionary tales seem the product of a world governed by outrage, anxiety, and unease. You won't forget them in a hurry. Nor should you." - Rupert Thomson, author of Barcelona Dreaming
"The stories in Cosmogramma are shot through with a sense of foreboding, a feeling that we as a species are heading for self-annihilation if we don't get our act together and fast. In that sense, and in several others, the stories feel unsettlingly contemporary and can—and should—be read as a last call to action. 'The Sanofka Principle' in particular bent my mind out of shape, in a good way. Now there's a story that requires (and repays) close reading!" - Stephen Thompson, author of Meet Me Under the Westway
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Courttia Newland is the author of seven books including A River Called Time, The Gospel According to Cane, and his much-lauded debut, The Scholar. In 2016 he was awarded the Roland Rees Bursary for playwriting. As a screenwriter, he has written two episodes of the Steve McQueen BBC series Small Axe.
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