STARLINGS by Jo Walton

An intimate first flight of short fiction from award-winning novelist Jo Walton (AMONG OTHERS, THE KINGS PEACE).

An strange Eritrean coin travels from lovers to thieves, gathering stories before meeting its match. Google becomes sentient and proceeds toward an existential crisis. An idealistic dancer on a generation ship makes an impassioned plea for creativity and survival. Three Irish siblings embark on an unlikely quest, stealing enchanted items via bad poetry, trickery, and an assist from the Queen of Cats.

With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and wholly reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic—rising from the everyday into the universe itself.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction by Jo Walton

Fiction

• At the Bottom of the Garden
• Relentlessly Mundane
• Unreliable Witness
• On the Wall
• What Would Sam Spade Do
• What Joseph Felt
• What  Piece of Work
• Three Twilight Tales
• Parable Lost
• Remember the Allosaur
• Tradition
• Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction
• The Panda Coin
• Joyful and Triumphant
• Turnover
• Sleeper
• The Need to Stay the Same
• A Burden Shared
• Jane Austen to Cassandra
• Out of It

Poetry

• Dragon’s Song
• Not in this Town
• Hades and Persephone
• The Death of Petrach
• Advice to Loki
• Ask to Embla
• Three Bears Norse
• Machiavelli and Prospero
• Cardenio
• Ten Years Ahead: Oracle Poem
• Pax in Forma Columba
• Translated from the Original
• Sleepless in New Orleans
• The Godzilla Sonnets
• Not a Bio for Wiscon: Jo Walton

Script

• Three Shouts on a Hill (A Play)

Coming your way in trade paperback and digital formats in January 2018.

For more info on STARLINGS, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story