'This book is a clear descendent of Octavia Butler's Black science fiction legacy, but grounded in more explicit queerness and neuroatypicality.' 'What Solomon does brilliantly in this novel is in the creation of a society in which dichotomies loom over certain aspects of the narrative, and are eschewed by others.Hearkening back to the past in visions of the future can hold a number of narrative purposes.The past offers us countless nightmares and cautionary tales so too, I'm afraid, can the array of possible futures lurking up ahead.' When she discovers clues about the circumstances of her mother's death, she also comes closer to disturbing truths about the ship and its journey.' 'In Rivers Solomon's highly imaginative sci-fi novel An Unkindness of Ghosts, eccentric Aster was born into slavery on-and is trying to escape from-a brutally segregated spaceship that for generations has been trying to escort the last humans from a dying planet to a Promised Land. Like a vaccine, it is briefly painful, leaves a lingering soreness, but armors you from the inside out.' It is inoculation against pervasive, enduring disease. I love it like I love food, I love it for what it did to me, I love it for having made me feel stronger and more sure in a nightmare world, but it is not a happy book. But that might give the wrong impression: that it is a happy book, a book that makes a body feel good. I want to say about this book, its only imperfection is that it ended. 'What Solomon achieves with this debut-the sharpness, the depth, the precision-puts me in mind of a syringe full of stars. Nominated for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Novel

Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the Lambda Literary Award. One of the 100 Most Influential Queer Books of All Time, selected by BooklistĪ Best Book of 2017: NPR, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bustle, Bookish, Barnes & Noble, Chicago Public Library, Book Scrolling.įinalist for the 2018 Locus Award, John W. One of the 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time, selected by Esquire One of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the past decade, selected by NPR

An unkindness of ghost