Description
Book SynopsisIn the distant future, somewhere in the galaxy, a world has evolved where each person has multiple bodies, cybernetics has abolished privacy, and individual and family success are reliant upon instantaneous evaluations of how well each member conforms to the rigid social system. Young Fift is an only child of the Staid gender, struggling to maintain zir position in the system while developing a friendship with the acclaimed bioengineer Shria - a controversial and intriguing friendship, since Shria is Vail-gendered. Soon Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the centre of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into a multilayered Unraveling of society. Fift is torn between zir attraction to Shria and the safety of zir family, between staying true to zir feelings and social compliance . . . when zir personal crises suddenly take on global significance. What’s a young Staid to do when the whole world is watching?
Trade Review★ “This beautifully written debut is a thorough, well-realized picture of a world with a radically different concept of gender and the body that nonetheless has its own forms of oppression. Rosenbaum's novel is essential reading for anyone interested not only in speculative fiction that plays with gender norms, but also in quality SF in general. Highly recommended.” —
Booklist, starred review
“[A] complex meditation on fame, taboo, gender, and social control . . . as mind-bending as it is satisfying.”—
Publishers Weekly“A wildly inventive, funny, and ultimately quite heartfelt novel,
The Unraveling is a chaotic romp of gender deconstruction packaged up in a groovy science-fictional coming-of-age tale.” —
Chicago Review of Books
“A stunning far-future tale of what families might look like in a world where networking technology allows people to live in several bodies at the same time.”
—Science Friday “An immersive future history,
The Unraveling is a fantastic adventure that is also a story about the love that binds us to each other—and to the galaxy itself. Rosenbaum’s writing is wonderfully complex and whimsical, but most of all it is humane. No matter how alien his characters and worlds, they feel like kin.” —
Annalee Newitz, author of
Autonomous
“If you’ve followed Rosenbaum’s work to date—glittering, cerebral,hilarious short fiction—then it will not surprise you to learn thatthis is a book that is as weird and wild as shoes on a snake.”—
Cory Doctorow, author of
Walkaway“I hope a ton of people read this book, think about it, and talk about it, as this is the book that could launch a hundred think pieces and a thousand imitators . . . I truly feel like
The Unraveling is a reinvention of new directions stories can go when playing with science fiction’s favorite questions: What If? Why Not?” —
Little Red Reviewer
“The wonders of this novel are best revealed by reading it. . . . I was surprised again and again.” —
Rich Horton, editor of
Locus
