Brenda Peynado

A story collection, in the vein of Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, spanning worlds and dimensions, using strange and speculative elements to tackle issues ranging from class differences to immigration to first-generation experiences to xenophobia What does it mean to be other? What does it mean to love in a world determined to keep us apart? These questions murmur in the heart of each of Brenda Peynado's strange and singular stories. Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically. In one story, suburban families perform oblations to cattlelike angels who live on their roofs, believing that their "thoughts and prayers" will protect them from the world's violence. In another, inhabitants of an unnamed dictatorship slowly lose their own agency as pieces of their bodies go missing and, with them, the essential rights that those appendages serve. "The Great Escape" tells of an old woman who hides away in her apartment, reliving the past among beautiful objects she's hoarded, refusing all visitors, until she disappears completely. In the title story, children begin to levitate, flying away from their parents and their home country, leading them to eat rocks in order to stay grounded. With elements of science fiction and fantasy, fabulism and magical realism, Brenda Peynado uses her stories to reflect our flawed world, and the incredible, terrifying, and marvelous nature of humanity.

Stories

The Rock Eaters

A Tor. com Original

Touches

Annalee Newitz

Mary Robinette Kowal

Elizabeth Bear

John Chu

Seanan McGuire

E. Lily Yu

Laurie Penny

Kathleen Ann Goonan

Rivers Solomon

Carole Johnstone

Rich Larson

S. L. Huang

JY Yang

Greg Egan

Christopher Rowe

Karin Tidbeck

Siobhan Carroll

Mimi Mondal

Erinn L. Kemper

KJ Kabza

Lis Mitchell

M. Evan MacGriogair

Silvia Park

A collection of some of the best original science fiction and fantasy short fiction published on Tor.com in 2019. Includes stories by: Elizabeth Bear Siobhan Carroll John Chu Greg Egan Kathleen Ann Goonan S. L. Huang Carole Johnstone KJ Kabza Erinn L. Kemper Mary Robinette Kowal Rich Larson M. Evan MacGriogir Seanan McGuire Lis Mitchell Mimi Mondal Annalee Newitz Silvia Park Laurie Penny Brenda Peynado Christopher Rowe Rivers Solomon Karin Tidbeck JY Yang E. Lily Yu At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.com Original

Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2019 Edition

The Kite Maker is Brenda Peynado's science fiction novelette of how humans cope with alien contact. After aliens arrive on earth, humans do the unthinkable out of fear. When an alien walks into a human kite maker's store, coveting her kites, the human struggles with her guilt over her part in the alien massacres, while neo-Nazis draw a violent line between alien and human. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Kite Maker

Brenda Peynado

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