Series: Bone Universe (Book 3)
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Tor Books (September 26, 2017)
Synopsis
A City of living Bone towers crumbles to the ground and danger surrounds. Kirit Densira has lost everything she loved the most―her mother, her home, and the skies above. Nat Brokenwings―once Kirit's brother long before the rebellion tore them apart―is still trying to save his family in the face of catastrophe. They will need to band together once more to ensure not just own survival, but that of their entire community.
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY
Praise for THE BONE UNIVERSE Series
"Wilde’s fantastical trilogy (after Cloudbound) takes on violent political divisions, ecological desolation, and the imminent death of the only world the characters have ever known....Fans of the series will be satisfied by its conclusion." ―Publishers Weekly on Horizon
“A fantastic follow-up to Updraft―I liked it better than its predecessor, particularly for what it says about the politics of fear and prejudice, and how giving people what they want isn't always the best thing." ―Aliette de Bodard, award-winning author of House of Shattered Wings, on Cloudbound
"A thrilling and complex tale about the most difficult stage of a revolution: what do you do after you win? Highly recommended both for the story it tells as well as how it tells that story. Wilde takes risks that pay off hugely.” ―Ken Liu, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Grace of Kings, on Cloudbound
"A book that’s impossible to put down. [Wilde has] planted herself firmly in the “authors to watch” category." ―Andrew Liptak on Updraft
"The world of the towers grown from bone, where residents strap on wings and soar the air currents, is captivating...Kirit’s journey to find her place is satisfying, but the real draw is a world that readers will be anxious to revisit in future volumes of this exciting new series." ―Library Journal, starred review, on Updraft
Excerpt from HORIZON by Fran Wilde © 2017
Tor Books
Tor Books
That evening, as the sun’s last rays slipped below the distant ridge, Wik and I found Ciel standing on the city’s brow, spin-ning a turn, as one would for flight practice. Arms out, empty. No silk wings, no battens, no grips.
She stepped into a slow curve of mimicked flight, fin gers moving invisible wing controls, hooking and lifting the air.
When she caught me watching, she dropped her arms.
My heart sank. We’d lost so much. All of us.
“I don’t want to forget how,” she said, her eyes welling.
“ We’ll find our way back into the clouds,” I promised, know-ing we might not.
Ciel, no longer a child, wouldn’t meet my eyes.
We went to sleep hungry that night. In the morning, after awful dreams, we caught a change on the horizon. Variations in the slow- paced movements of the creatures crossing the long stretch of desert.
I spotted the motion at the same time as Wik, but he was the one who yelled, “Look!” He was the one who caused the giant black bone eaters to lift, startled, and crap everywhere again. I ran out of the way, climbed up the rope to the city’s shoulder, and saw clearly what Wik had noticed.
In the distance, large, gray shadows moved slowly across the dust, highlighted by moonlight.
More cities. Smaller than our own. We watched the first city bite the second with a fierce lunge. That motion had caught Wik’s attention.
We’d watched these cities since we’d hit the ground moons ago. We’d seen them walk to the distant ripple on the horizon that had to be a body of water.
We’d seen them run at each other and fight, their massive bodies and the short bone ridges on their backs looking impres-sively graceful for all their bulk.
“They won’t make good homes if they fight,” Wik worried.
But we still watched, looking for one with towers high enough to fly from and short enough to scale.
We’d named them, trying to tell the differences between them. None had spires as tall as our city. Most were relatively small. The one we called Nimru was pale, like its tower name-sake. Another, Corat, had spires that twisted a little crooked, like Corit tower. These two cities had been feinting at each other for days, loudly.
Our own city had no name. Ciel refused to name a dying thing, worried that doing so was bad luck. That it would speed the city’s passage.
Now with one bite, Corat’s wobbles and tremors increased, its spires swaying slowly back and forth. A beginning of new nightmares. Corat collapsed to its knees.
Nimru moved carefully away from the long shadows that the kneeling city’s towers cast across the dirt.
The sight stilled my voice in my throat and turned all my hopes to ash. What were we doing here, working towards that kind of end? Our city would one day wobble, then fall like this.
But we couldn’t warn anyone above. We’d tried to climb the bone wall, but overhangs and bone spurs blocked our upward passage. We tried to help Maalik fly again, and failed. Without the bird, we had no way to communicate with our friends and family in the clouds.
The best we could do was keep feeding the city, keep it alive until Maalik was better, or we found a place to climb that worked.
We could watch Corat die in the meantime.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been nominated for two Nebula awards and a Hugo, and include her Andre Norton- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel, Updraft (Tor 2015), its sequels, Cloudbound (2016) and Horizon (2017), and the novelette “The Jewel and Her Lapidary” (Tor.com Publishing 2016). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and the 2017 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, iO9.com, and GeekMom.com. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and at franwilde.net.
Photo Credit: Steven Gould
WEBSITE: http://www.franwilde.net/
TWITTER: @fran_wilde
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5214733.Fran_Wilde
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/franwildewrites
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/fran_wilde/
--Giveaway is open to International. | Must be 13+ to Enter
- 3 Winners will receive a Set Copy of Bone Universe Series (3 Books in Total) UPDRAFT, CLOUDBOUND and HORIZON by Fran Wilde.
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