Showing results by author "Susan Quinn" in All Categories

In 1932 Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the first lady with dread. By that time she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life - now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next 30 years, until Eleanor's death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.

Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mind reader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf.

SHORT STORY: At the bottom of the sea, a trawler crawls across an abyssal plain, carefully cleaning microplastics off the ancient mineral-rich nodules, when the crew finds something that shouldn't be possible. Slimy Things Did Crawl is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection.

For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. It’s a legal vow of care for families in 2050, a world beset by waves of climate-driven plagues. Power engineer Lucía Ramirez long ago lost her family to one - she’d give anything to take that vow. The Power Islands give humanity a fighting chance, but tending kelp farms and solar lilies is a lonely job.

SHORT STORY: Humanity has left the cities to live in the "greenbelt," but a young woman's curiosity brings her back to the bot-patrolled streets where human beings used to live... until she gets caught. Tombs Without Bodies is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

SHORT STORY: A cute technician keeps breaking things in her too-shiny lab, then calling a fixer in for repairs. Zita's a certified member of the International Guild of Repair Workers, Local 772, and she's certain this hot girl is breaking her toys on purpose. But why? Something very sexy but very weird is going on...

Human cloning. Technology evolves faster than we do. The law shields us from our worst temptations. But the opportunity is there, dangling just out of reach - perfection and ascension or delusion and destruction. The choice is ours. In this collection of clone-themed stories, 10 of today’s top speculative fiction writers explore our morality and built-in societal restraints and reflect upon our state of grace. Similar is not necessarily the same.

Aniri’s life is supposedly perfect - she’s beloved by the people of Jungali and betrothed to their handsome prince. He’s a noble barbarian who’s pledged to use his skyship for peace, but the threat of a second skyship in the hands of rival country Samir looms over their impending marriage...and Aniri begins to question her rush to marry a man she barely knows. When the Second Daughter of Dharia is poisoned, Aniri tells her soon-to-be husband she must rush off to Samir to care for her beloved sister. After all, how can she wed when Seledri may be dying?

When your mind is a weapon, freedom comes at a price. Four months have passed since Kira left home to join Julian's Jacker Freedom Alliance, but the hole in her heart still whistles empty where her boyfriend Raf used to be. She fills it with weapons training, JFA patrols, and an obsessive hunt for FBI agent Kestrel, ignoring Julian's worries about her safety and repeated attempts to recruit her for his revolutionary chat-casts.

Seventeen-year-old Elijah Brighton wants to become an ascender--a post-Singularity human/machine hybrid--after all, they're smarter, more enlightened, more compassionate, and above all, achingly beautiful. But Eli is a legacy human, preserved and cherished for his unaltered genetic code, just like the rainforest he paints. When a fugue state possesses him and creates great art, Eli miraculously lands a sponsor for the creative Olympics. If he could just master the fugue, he could take the gold and win the right to ascend, bringing everything he's yearned for within reach...

Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders' fears and strips jackers of their rights.

Sneaking out of the palace wasn’t one of Aniri’s best ideas. But she’s the third daughter of the Queen of Dharia - zero responsibilities and zero royal duties. She’s just the backup daughter, in case her older sisters’ arranged marriages - to take the crown or broker an alliance - don’t quite work out. But once Aniri reaches her 18th birthday, she’ll be truly free...and then she can marry the charming fencing instructor she meets for fevered kisses in the forest. But then the impossible happens - a marriage proposal. From a barbarian prince in the north, no less.

What if you could paint with reality? Elijah Brighton can bring a girl back from the dead, travel outside his body, and absorb a lifetime of memories from anyone he touches in the fugue state. Everyone seems to think he's the prophet they're waiting for...including the girl he's falling in love with. The truth is, the fugue is bleeding over into reality, bringing his sketches to life and haunting him with visions of a girl in metal armor. She stabs him with her blade and denounces him as any prophet worth the name - and it's not like he disagrees.

Elijah Brighton is the face of the Human Resistance Movement. He's the Olympic-level painter who refused an offer of immortality from the ascenders - the human/machine hybrids who run the world - in solidarity with the legacy humans who will never get a chance to live forever. Worse, Eli's not even entirely human. Few know about the ascenders' genetic experiments that left him...different. Fewer know about the state that creates his transcendent art - as well as a bridge that lets him speak to the dead.

Nitara Desai has spent her life negotiating international agreements, easing points of conflict, and averting disasters. Worst-case scenarios belong in her nightmares, not the IEC’s daily reports. On a calm day, being a director at the International Energy Consortium only requires fixing CarbonCon translators for flustered Brazilian delegates. A thankless job, but the world is still drowning in CO2—there’s no choice but to keep treading.

What's your life worth on the open market? In this sexy, gritty future-noir, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more "worthy"...all while paying the price with black marks on their souls. Lirium plays the part of the grim reaper well, with his dark trenchcoat and jackboots - he's just in it for his cut, 10 percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, people who will make the world a better place with their work and their lives.

Akemi’s job on the Public Utilities Commission has its own daily disasters—making sure the infrastructure of civilization keeps running is the most thankless job on the planet. When a double event hits—heatwave plus viral breakout—keeping the power on is an all-out battle. It doesn’t help that he’s distracted by his elderly father, who was struck down and neuro-compromised by the same virus that killed his mother the year before.

The war has begun, and with the Queen of Dharia on her deathbed, Aniri’s excessively-proper eldest sister, first daughter Nahali, finally sees her chance to claim the crown. Aniri and Nahali have never seen eye-to-eye, not since they were girls running through the palace courtyard, but with Prince Malik and second daughter Seledri kidnapped, Aniri can’t afford to fight with her sister.

Zuri has the perfect life—a beautiful home on the Hillstead, a loving family, and a powerful job keeping the LA Basin’s grid humming. If only she didn’t see the ghost of her dead twin in the mirror. Her grief-counselor husband understands too much, Aunties Cora and Vivian smother her to excess, and her mother can’t look at her daughter without seeing the half that’s missing. Zuri can’t begin to face her sister’s little daughter—to Ruby, Zuri is the ghost. Which is why she’s running away to work, again, on the anniversary of her sister’s death.