Blurb

For over a century, the Reclamation’s technology has kept an ancient enemy at bay. That is about to change.

Three generations ago, humanity was nearly mutated out of recognition by a group of technological accelerationists. With the help of visitors from a parallel universe, the surviving humans were able to construct walls capable of repulsing their enemy, and established the country known as the Reclamation.

But in the here and now, the citizens of the Reclamation are divided. Does their continued safety depend upon establishing a dialogue with the ancient enemy, or upon bolstering their defenses even further?

When a boy appears inside the Reclamation’s walls, seemingly human but certainly originating from outside, debate becomes outright conflict, one which, if addressed wrongly, has the potential to end Reclamation civilization.

The Other was a finalist in the 2020 Wishing Shelf Books Awards.

Read if you are interested in…

• the politicization of otherness
• historical periods of political divergence and convergence; what it takes to achieve convergence
• what happens on Asura after the end of Alterra

Inspiration

My inspiration here was largely the 2016 United States presidential election. Also just watching how my country’s media has devolved over the course of my lifetime. Besides the high technology present on Asura (one of the two parallel universes first presented in Alterra, the setting is otherwise quasi-realist, with a deeply polarized country going into an election, the outcome of which will determine their stance toward the population of the rest of their planet.

Editions