Description

“I have been waiting for this sumptuous, prismatic collection for literal years. Theodore McCombs is a poet of queer pasts, presents, and futures, and Uranians is a formidable debut.” -Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties For readers of Ted Chiang and Karen Russell, a genre-defying debut story collection that explores the essential role of queerness in this and every other possible world. At the end of the Victorian era, a handful of forward-thinking public intellectuals advocated for societal tolerance of the “Uranian”-a man who loved other men-wondering if these “intermediate sexes” might in fact constitute totally different beings, even hopeful guides toward the future. The six stories in Theodore McComb’s kaleidoscopic debut span several possible worlds, teasing the boundaries between coexisting realities and taking up the question of queer difference from one surprising vantage after another. In “Towards a Theory of Alternative Lifestyles,” a heartbroken young man stands in line at an exclusive underground gay nightclub promising visions of parallel lives across the multiverse. In “Ora et Labora,” an adolescent novice at a Gothic monastery is forced to labor slavishly over math problems for the good of society entire. In Boston, at the turn of a very different 20th century, a domineering matron-cum-hangman feels that if you want things done right, you’ll just have to do them yourself. Finally, in the titular novella “Uranians,” an expedition of queer artists, scientists, and one transgender priest are on a lifelong interplanetary voyage that requires them to renegotiate their connections to a remote and hostile Earth, while keeping their ship’s biome alive in the harsh void of space.

Publisher Review

"A remarkable achievement, a polished and varied set of stories: speculative, queer, and cerebral . . . Wonderfully crafted, texturally rich, the stories in Uranians have the kind of realism you only get with a little distance from reality-a thoughtful and splendid experience." -Jake Casella Brookins, Chicago Review of Books "Anyone who yearns for a world of universal acceptance, where one can live as one wishes, may nod in agreement at the four stories and one novella in Uranians." -Michael Magras, Shelf Awareness (starred review) "[An] enthralling collection . . . these stories are compassionate, finely wrought, and unique." -David Vogel, BuzzFeed "[A] thrilling debut . . . Uranians immediately grabbed me with its sure-footed prose, complex characters, and inventive conceits; by the end of the book, I was in awe of McCombs's ability to layer so many big ideas and emotional depths in such a fun, tight page-turner. (It's also a very hot book, featuring some of my new favorite sex writing.)." -Steven Pfau, BOMB "Wildly creative speculative fiction awaits readers who love this wondrously innovative genre." -Jim Piechota, Bay Area Reporter "There is not an out-of-place word anywhere in these 207 pages . . . I'm hereby telling anyone who enjoys short fiction, queer fiction, or speculative fiction to go read this right now." -Sophie Gorjance, MetaStellar "The stories [in Uranians] are my favorite kind of speculative-weird and upsetting and imaginative and deeply rooted in the injustices and preoccupations of our world." -Laura Sackton, Books & Bakes "The whole collection hangs together as form and content, mind and heart. Beautiful work." -Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry For the Future "If you like stories that linger, that turn over again and again in your mind after you've read them, then this is your book. Such a delight to have discovered this innovative and brilliant new voice. Such a delight to urge you to the same discovery." -Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves "Exquisite, unsettling, richly felt stories, in which both tenderness and the possibility of estrangement open up doors to the fantastic and the surreal." -Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Get in Trouble "One enters Uranians like a trap door into an alternate reality, but slowly the stories reveal themselves as an uncanny valley not far from where we actually stand. With great intelligence, beautiful prose, and a keen eye for our deep-seated anxieties, McCombs draws worlds-past, present, and future-in which capitalism-assisted technologies and patriarchy-induced paranormalities have taken control, rendering us unrecognizable to one another. These are extraordinary tales of anti-heroes in post-apocalyptic and macabre landscapes who must battle systems to find their liberation and in the process illuminate our own. McCombs has written an absorbing and thought-provoking debut collection." -Alejandro Varela, National Book Award finalist and author of The Town of Babylon "There's a certain pleasure to reading a writer that has mastered his craft. Every beautifully-constructed, razor-sharp story in this collection is an arrow on a perfect path. Theodore McCombs never misses." -Cadwell Turnbull, author of No Gods, No Monsters