Skip to main content
book cover for Starlings

Starlings

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app


1

To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.

2

Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.

Pub Date Feb 23 2018 | Archive Date May 15 2018


Description

“Exquisitely written feats of imagination, each one leaving an impression long after it’s done.”
Kelley Armstrong, author of Bitten and Rituals

In her first collection, award-winning novelist Jo Walton (Among OthersThe King’s Peace, Necessity) delivers both subtle legends and reinvented realities. An ancient coin cyber-spies on lovers and thieves. The magic mirror sees all but can do nothing. A cloned savior solves a fanatically-inspired murder. Three Irish siblings thieve treasures with bad poetry and the aid of the Queen of Cats.

“Exquisitely written feats of imagination, each one leaving an impression long after it’s done.”
Kelley Armstrong, author of Bitten and Rituals

In her first collection, award-winning novelist Jo...


A Note From the Publisher
Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian author of science fiction, fantasy, and poetry. She has published thirteen novels, and her fourteenth, Lent, is due out in Fall 2018. She has also published three poetry collections and an essay collection. Walton is the recipient of the John W. Campbell, Hugo, World Fantasy, James Tiptree, Jr., and Locus awards. She comes from Wales, has lived in England, and now lives in Montreal, where the food and books are much better.

Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian author of science fiction, fantasy, and poetry. She has published thirteen novels, and her fourteenth, Lent, is due out in Fall 2018. She has also published three poetry...


Advance Praise

Praise for Starlings

A Verge Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book You’ll Want to Read in January
A Chicago Tribune New Short Story Collection Worth Reading
A Barnes & Noble Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of January 2018
An Unbound Worlds Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book of February 2018

“An intriguing peek inside a fertile mind.”

Kirkus

“This collection of fiction and poetry from Hugo- and Nebula-winner Walton (The Just City) showcases her trademark focus on genre and philosophical questions . . . fans of the [short] form will have plenty to appreciate.”
Publishers Weekly

Starlings isn't really a short-story collection. It's something better: a written showreel, illustrating yet again that [Walton’s] imagination stretches to the stars (or the starlings), and that she's endlessly inventive in finding new methods to express it.
—NPR Books

“Walton's diverse collection of stories and poems sparkles with originality and fun. The joy of this book will linger with me for a while.”
—Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger

Starlings is a showcase of Jo Walton's diverse talents—a collection too varied to be summed up in a few words. From fairytale fantasy to hard science fiction, from laugh-aloud play script to finely crafted poetry, with a writing experiment or two thrown in, Starlings should delight Walton's existing fans and garner many new ones.”
—Juliet Marillier, author of Daughter of the Living Forest

“Stephen King once wrote that ‘a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger’—that is, sudden, pleasant, mysterious, dangerous, and exciting—and the collected short fiction of Jo Walton is exemplary of the principle.”
—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother

“Jo Walton's short writings have for decades been among the things that make the Internet worthwhile. She makes science fiction illuminate life. This collection lives up to its title: iridescent, dark, gregarious, talkative and ever ready to fly up.”
—Ken MacLeod, author of Newton’s Wake and the Corporation Wars series

“Reading this collection felt like watching a wizard at the cauldron having fun with new spells . . . I recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys fantasy, Jo Walton’s previous works, or wants to try shorter works before committing to longer ones.”
Infinite Text

“Jo Walton’s delightful collection, Starlings, runs the gamut from homemade fairy tales to hard-boiled cloned-Jesus detectives (just wait for the shaggy dog); to a play with figures out of Irish myth, and a talking dragon; to a selection of her fantastic poems. It’s the kind of collection you can glide through, often while laughing out loud.
—Gregory Frost, author of Shadowbridge

“One of the things I love about Walton’s work is her range of human possibility, from laughter to horror, but above all a reveling in profligate beauty. This collection celebrates the best in the human spirit.”
—Sherwood Smith, author of Rebel and Revenant Eve

 “Multiple award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Jo Walton’s first short fiction collection is a captivating array of fairy tales, mythology, space fiction, machine sentience, alien encounters, heaven, and more.”
Read Well 

“I recommend Starlings to lovers of science fiction and fantasy who want bite-sized pieces to enjoy and savor. It's an eclectic mix of themes and tones, some humorous and some dark, that will keep you guessing.”
—Den of Geek

 “As varied, as skilled, as intriguing as her novels, this is a stunning collection of stories, vignettes, poetry and more.”
—Best Science Fiction Books

 “Coupled with Walton’s frank self-assessments, the collection offers an incredible sense of intimacy. It’s the closest we’ll come to understanding how Jo Walton’s dizzying writer’s mind ticks along, and how her imagination flows. It’s a rare opportunity, to peek in on the inventor in her workshop. Starlings is revelatory not only as a collection of fiction, but as a sort of biography of the process of writing itself. Fascinating.”
—Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

 “Sharp, focused, and fresh.” 
Geek Dad

 “5/5 stars. There wasn’t anything that I didn’t like about [Starlings]. It ticked all boxes for me.”
The Misadventures of a Reader

  “A wild and wonderful imagination at work.”
—Emerald City Book Review

“A master class in studying technique, form, and ending stories with zingers.”
—Lightspeed

"Walton’s honesty and bold confidence gives this collection its edge; her voice and passion is clear throughout and many of the themes and ideas she weaves into her stories are thought-provoking and resonant. A strong collection from a giant of fiction."
Novel Observations

“Walton’s writing is as good as ever. But what really shines through this collection is the calibre of Walton’s ideas.”
Strangely Charmless

“Lovely and artful, a definite must read for 2018.”
—A Bookish Beginning

 “Recommended, and not just for Walton completists!”
Big Book Balloon

“Displays Walton’s formidable erudition, and her fascination with the various forms stories can take . . . Starlings as a whole may be the most interesting anatomy of that imagination than we’ve yet seen in one volume.”
Locus

Praise for Jo Walton

On Necessity

“Brilliant, compelling, and, frankly, unputdownable.”
NPR

“As before, Walton has done a superb job of world building and character development, giving readers a novel that both stimulates and satisfies.”
Booklist, starred review

“There’s more substance here than in many actual philosophy books.”
Romantic Times

On Among Others

“A wonder and a joy.”
New York Times

“Never deigning to transcend the genre to which it is clearly a love letter, this outstanding (and entirely teen-appropriate) tale draws its strength from a solid foundation of sense-of-wonder and what-if.
Publishers Weekly, starred review

“There are the books you want to give all your friends, and there are the books you wish you could go back and give your younger self. And then there’s the rare book, like Jo Walton’s Among Others, that’s both.”
io9.com

On The King’s Peace

“The King’s Peace is the novel that The Mists of Avalon shouldhave been.”
—Debra Doyle, author of School of Wizardry

“Walton writes with an authenticity that never loses heart, a rare combination in a genre where we are so often offeredone or the other.”
—Robin Hobb, author of Assassin’s Apprentice

“There is not an ill-written sentence . . . Never lacks immediacy or loses its historical quality.”
VOYA

Praise for Starlings

A Verge Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book You’ll Want to Read in January
A Chicago Tribune New Short Story Collection Worth Reading
A Barnes & Noble Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of...


Marketing Plan

Planned publicity and marketing

Promotion at major trade and genre conventions, including BEA, Readercon, the World Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions

Features, interviews, and reviews targeting TRADE, literary, and genre venues, including the Washington PostNPR, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle

Author appearance tour dates TBD

Planned galley distribution and book giveaways to include NetGalley, Goodreads, Edelweiss, Tor.com, and additional online outlets

Advertising and promotion in national print, online outlets, and social media

Planned publicity and marketing

Promotion at major trade and genre conventions, including BEA, Readercon, the World Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions

Features, interviews, and reviews...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781616960568
PRICE CA$23.95 (CAD)
PAGES 288

Average rating from 95 members


Readers who liked this book also liked: