All the Birds in the Sky
Charlie Jane Anders, 2016
Tor Books.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780765379948
Summary
A stunning novel about the end of the world—and the beginning of our future.
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school.
After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.
But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.
Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's every-growing ailments.
Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together—to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Manchester, Connecticut, USA
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Nebula Award, Hugo Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Charlie Jane Anders is a website co-creator and editor, a short story writer, and author of sci-fi / fantasy novels—All the Birds in the Sky (2016) and The City in the Middle of the Night (2019).
Anders was raised in Mansfield, Connecticut. She went to Cambridge University in England where she studied English and Asian literature, prompting her to study abroad in China. Following college, she spent time in Hong Kong and Boston and now makes her home in San Francisco, California.
Career
In 2007, along with Annalee Newitz, Anders helped co-found the popular Gawker Media site, io9—a blog devoted to science fiction and fantasy. She worked as editor-in-chief until 2016 when she left to concentrate on her writing.
In 2016 Anders published her debut sci-fi / fantasy novel, All the Birds in the Sky. The book earned her the 2017 Nebula Awards for Best Novel, was a finalist for the year's Hugo Best Novel category, and climbed to the number five spot on Time magazine's top 10 novels list. An earlier novelette, "Six Months, Three Days," published in 2013 on Tor.com, also won a Hugo Award.
Anders has been publishing short stories since 1999—more than 100—in a variety of genres. Her fiction has been published by McSweeney's, Lightspeed, and ZYZZYVA. Her journalism has appeared in Salon, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, Atlantic Monthly, and other outlets.
Events
In addition to writing, Anders has spent years as an event organizer. She organized a "ballerina pie fight" in 2005 for other magazine; co-organized the "Cross-Gender Caravan," a national transgender and genderqueer author tour; and a "Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl" in San Francisco. Anders also emcees an award-winning monthly reading series "Writers with Drinks," a San Francisco-based event begun in 2001 that features authors from a wide range of genres.
Personal
Since 2000, Anders has been partnered with Annalee Newitz. In addition to the io9 blog, the couple co-founded other magazine and hosted the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Anders is transgender. In 2007, she brought attention to a discriminatory policy of San Francisco bisexual women's organization, The Chasing Amy Social Club, that specifically barred pre-operative transgender women from membership. (Adapted from Wikipedia and other online sources. Retrieved 2/26/2019.)
Book Reviews
Into each generation of science fiction/fantasydom a master absurdist must fall, and it’s quite possible that with All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders has established herself as the one for the Millennials…. As hopeful as it is hilarious, and highly recommended.
New York Times Book Review
A fairy tale and an adventure rolled into one, All the Birds in the Sky is a captivating novel that shows how science and magic can be two sides of the same coin.
Washington Post
Like the work of other 21st century writers—Kelly Link and Lev Grossman come immediately to mind—All the Birds in the Sky serves as both a celebration of and corrective to the standard tropes of genre fiction.... Anders' humor elevates this marvelous book above the morass of dystopian novels that have flooded the literary landscape. The result feels like one of William Gibson's baroquely complex worlds, aerated by lighter-than-air dialogue and an engaging, diverse cast of supporting characters you'd love to meet at your next end-of-the-world party.
Los Angeles Times
Anders smoothly pivots from horror to humor to heartbreak and back again, and she keeps readers guessing as to the fate of her two protagonists—and the world. Talking animals and a sentient computer searching for love and understanding tighten the narrative strings.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) At turns darkly funny and deeply melancholy, this is a polished gem of a novel.... Her depiction of near-future San Francisco shows a native's understanding (and love) of the city, while gently skewering it at the same time. —MM
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Will science or magic save our world and all the living beings on it? That's the question posed in this science fantasy love story.... Anders clearly has an intimate understanding of how hard it is to find friends when you're perceived as "different" as well as a sweeping sense of how nice it would be to solve large problems with a single solution..
Kirkus Reviews
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