Jo Walton

What we do for one another is a mystery. A Tor.com original. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and science fiction, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment. Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she and her twin sister played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins, but her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. When her mother tries to bend the spirits to dark ends with deadly results, Mori is sent away and must try to come to terms with what has happened without falling prey to the darkness.

The Hugo Awards, named after pioneer science-fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback, and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Society, have been given out since 1953. They are widely considered the most prestigious awards in science fiction.Between 2010 and 2013, Jo Walton wrote a series of posts for Tor.com, surveying the Hugo finalists and winners from the award's inception up to the year 2000. Her contention was that each year's full set of finalists generally tells a meaningful story about the state of science fiction at that time.Walton's cheerfully opinionated and vastly well-informed posts provoked valuable conversation among the field's historians. Now these posts, lightly revised, have been gathered into this book, along with a small selection of the comments posted by SF luminaries such as Rich Horton, Gardner Dozois, and the late David G. Hartwell.

Gales, 1979. Criada por una madre obsesionada con la magia, Morwena pasa los días en un internado devorando novelas de fantasía y ciencia ficción para abstraerse de su perturbadora realidad. Allí finalmente encontrará su lugar, hará amigos y conseguirá, por un tiempo, olvidarse de ese padre que apenas conoce, de sus extrañas tías o de lo que le ocurrió a su hermana gemela. Pero el velo que une la realidad con el mundo de las hadas es cada vez más fino y su madre no tardará en volver a poner en peligro todo lo que es importante para ella. Entre extraños recibió en 2012 los premios Nebula y Hugo a mejor novela, así como el British Fantasy consagrando a su autora como una de las voces más relevantes del fantástico contemporáneo.

It's 1960, and the Axis powers dominate the world. Life goes on, because, as we see in "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction," history is driven both by big events and by small temptations… Following the appearance of her first two novels, The King's Peace and The King's Name, Jo Walton won the 2002 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Two years later she won the World Fantasy Award for Tooth and Claw. Her Small Change trilogy, comprising Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half A Crown, is set in a world in which Britain struck an early truce with Hitler in 1941; "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" is set in the America of that world.

One summer weekend in 1949 — but not our 1949 — the well-connected "Farthing set", a group of upper-crust English families, enjoy a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter in one of those families; her parents were both leading figures in the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Herr Hitler eight years before. Despite her parents' evident disapproval, Lucy is married — happily — to a London Jew. It was therefore quite a surprise to Lucy when she and her husband David found themselves invited to the retreat. It's even more startling when, on the retreat's first night, a major politician of the Farthing set is found gruesomely murdered, with abundant signs that the killing was ritualistic. It quickly becomes clear to Lucy that she and David were brought to the retreat in order to pin the murder on him. Major political machinations are at stake, including an initiative in Parliament, supported by the Farthing set, to limit the right to vote to university graduates. But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts… and looking beyond the obvious. As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out — a way fraught with peril in a darkening world.

Cresciuta da una madre mezza pazza che amava dilettarsi con la magia, Mori Phelps ha cercato e trovato rifugio in due mondi. Nel corso dell’infanzia, trascorsa in Galles, lei e la sorella gemella giocavano tra gli spiriti che costruivano le loro case tra le rovine industriali. In seguito al tentativo della madre di piegare gli spiriti a fini oscuri con risultati mortali, Mori fugge via, e finisce in un collegio inglese, sotto la tutela del padre mai visto prima. La sua mente trova libertà e promessa nei romanzi di fantascienza, che diventano i suoi compagni più stretti, fino a quando non incontra, forse proprio grazie alla magia, una comunità di persone davvero affini, e chissà? Anche l’amore. Mori si troverà dunque ad affrontare una duplice quella della crescita, e quella del dolore; e dovrà cercare di fare i conti con ciò che è accaduto senza cadere preda dell’oscurità.

In 1941 the European war ended in the Farthing Peace, a rapprochement between Britain and Nazi Germany. The balls and banquets of Britain's upper class never faltered, while British ships ferried undesirables across the Channel to board the cattle cars headed east. Peter Carmichael is commander of the Watch, Britain's distinctly British secret police. It's his job to warn the Prime Minister of treason, to arrest plotters, and to discover Jews. The midnight knock of a Watchman is the most dreaded sound in the realm. Now, in 1960, a global peace conference is convening in London, where Britain, Germany, and Japan will oversee the final partition of the world. Hitler is once again on British soil. So is the long exiled Duke of Windsor and the rising gangs of British Power streetfighters, who consider the Government soft and may be the former king's bid to stage a coup d’état. Amidst all this, two of the most unlikely persons in the realm will join forces to oppose the fascists: a debutante whose greatest worry until now has been where to find the right string of pearls, and the Watch Commander himself.

In 1949, eight years after the "Peace with Honor" was negotiated between Great Britain and Nazi Germany by the Farthing Set, England has completed its slide into fascist dicatorship. Then a bomb explodes in a London suburb. The brilliant but politically compromised Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is assigned the case. What he finds leads him to a conspiracy of peers and communists, of staunch King-and- Country patriots and hardened IRA gunmen, to murder Britain's Prime Minister and his new ally, Adolf Hitler. Against a background of increasing domestic espionage and the suppression of Jews and homosexuals, an ad-hoc band of idealists and conservatives blackmail the one person they need to complete their plot, an actress who lives for her art and holds the key to the Fuhrer's death. From the ha'penny seats in the theatre to the ha'pennies that cover dead men's eyes, the conspiracy and the investigation swirl around one another, spinning beyond anyone's control. In this brilliant companion to Farthing, Welsh-born World Fantasy Award winner Jo Walton continues her alternate history of an England that could have been, with a novel that is both an homage of the classic detective novels of the thirties and forties, and an allegory of the world we live in today.

Atenea, diosa griega de la sabiduría, quiere hacer un experimento ¿Qué pasaría si se aplicaran las ideas de La República de Platón en la realidad? En una isla mediterránea perdida reúne a devotos del filósofo de todas las épocas para convertirlos en maestros de la utópica ciudad, y a 10.000 niños de diez años para poblarla… Y luego están los robots, por supuesto, porque alguien tiene que hacer el trabajo duro. Conoceremos la historia a través de los puntos de vista de Maia (una dama victoriana sedienta de conocimiento), Simmea (una niña brillante que cree a pies juntillas en el proyecto) y el dios Apolo, que elige experimentar una vida mortal como un niño más (o lo intenta). Por supuesto, nada sale como estaba planeado, y con la llegada de Sócrates a la ciudad, entre robots que despiertan y niños que se rebelan, todos comenzarán a hacerse las preguntas incorrectas. La ciudad justa es una fantasía utópica brillante que juega con la filosofía griega y explora los conceptos de la libertad y el libre albedrío sin dejar de ser rabiosamente divertida.

From Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning Jo Walton comes Lent, a magical re-imagining of the man who remade fifteenth-century Florence—in all its astonishing strangeness Young Girolamo’s life is a series of miracles. It’s a miracle that he can see demons, plain as day, and that he can cast them out with the force of his will. It’s a miracle that he’s friends with Pico della Mirandola, the Count of Concordia. It’s a miracle that when Girolamo visits the deathbed of Lorenzo “the Magnificent,” the dying Medici is wreathed in celestial light, a surprise to everyone, Lorenzo included. It’s a miracle that when Charles VIII of France invades northern Italy, Girolamo meets him in the field, and convinces him to not only spare Florence but also protect it. It’s a miracle than whenever Girolamo preaches, crowds swoon. It’s a miracle that, despite the Pope’s determination to bring young Girolamo to heel, he’s still on the loose… and, now, running Florence in all but name. That’s only the beginning. Because Girolamo Savanarola is not who—or what—he thinks he is. He will discover the truth about himself at the most startling possible time. And this will be only the beginning of his many lives.

Bon Agornin a eu une longue et belle vie, mais sa fin est proche, il le sent. Étendu près de son trésor, il attend la mort. Toute sa famille est réunie pour vivre avec lui ses derniers instants : ses deux fils et ses trois filles, ainsi que son gendre, l'Illustre Daverak qui héritera de son domaine. Bon Agornin tient absolument à se confesser à son fils aîné, il veut partir absous de ses péchés, d'autant que ceux-ci sont immenses : afin de pouvoir devenir un dragon de soixante-dix pieds de long, capable de voler et de cracher du feu, il a dévoré son frère et sa soeur - les carcasses de boeuf ne suffisent pas pour mener à bien une telle entreprise... "Je n'ai pas eu le choix", se justifie-t-il, dans son dernier souffle. Avant d'être dévoré à son tour par ses héritiers, comme le veut la tradition chez les dragons

A very unique fantasy novel by Jo Walton — a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the World Fantasy award. From the introduction by Sharyn November: "Lifelode is what one might call domestic fantasy, set in a quiet farming community—but it's also about politics, God and religion, sexual mores, the make-up of a family, and how people change over time. There is magic, humor, and lots of good food."

From acclaimed, award-winning author Jo Walton: Philosopher Kings, a tale of gods and humans, and the surprising things they have to learn from one another. Twenty years have elapsed since the events of The Just City. The City, founded by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, organized on the principles espoused in Plato’s Republic and populated by people from all eras of human history, has now split into five cities, and low-level armed conflict between them is not unheard-of. The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as "Pythias" in the City, his true identity known only to a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it’s evident, particularly to his precocious daughter Arete, that he is unhinged with grief.Along with Arete and several of his sons, plus a boatload of other volunteers--including the now fantastically aged Marsilio Ficino, the great humanist of Renaissance Florence--Pythias/Apollo goes sailing into the mysterious Eastern Mediterranean of pre-antiquity to see what they can find—possibly the man who may have caused his great grief, possibly communities of the earliest people to call themselves "Greek." What Apollo, his daughter, and the rest of the expedition will discover…will change everything.

Née en 1926, Patricia Cowan finit ses jours dans une maison de retraite. Très âgée, très confuse, elle se souvient de ses deux vies. Dans l’une de ces existences, elle a épousé Mark, avec qui elle avait partagé une liaison épistolaire et platonique, un homme qui n’a pas tardé à montrer son véritable visage. Dans son autre vie, elle a enchaîné les succès professionnels, a rencontré Béatrice et a vécu heureuse avec cette dernière pendant plusieurs décennies. Dans chacune de ces vies, elle a eu des enfants. Elle les aime tous… Mais lesquels sont ses vrais enfants : ceux de l’âge nucléaire ou ceux de l’âge du progrès? Car Patricia ne se souvient pas seulement de ses vies distinctes, elle se souvient de deux mondes où l’Histoire a bifurqué en même temps que son histoire personnelle.

It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know—what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don’t seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead. She remembers the bomb that killed President Kennedy in 1963, and she remembers Kennedy in 1964, declining to run again after the nuclear exchange that took out Miami and Kiev. Her childhood, her years at Oxford during the Second World War—those were solid things. But after that, did she marry Mark or not? Did her friends all call her Trish, or Pat? Had she been a housewife who escaped a terrible marriage after her children were grown, or a successful travel writer with homes in Britain and Italy? And the moon outside her window: does it host a benign research station, or a command post bristling with nuclear missiles? Two lives, two worlds, two versions of modern history. Each with their loves and losses, their sorrows and triumphs. My Real Children is the tale of both of Patricia Cowan's lives...and of how every life means the entire world.

Han pasado sesenta años desde que Atenea fundó La Ciudad Justa situándola en una isla mediterránea, una ciudad basada en los preceptos de la República de Platón y gobernada por filósofos de diferentes épocas. Se sucedieron las generaciones, la ciudad cambió, se dividió y sus descendientes se enzarzaron en guerras y disputas que terminaron con la intervención de Zeus. Hoy nuevas ciudades florecen en un planeta distante e incluso se ha empezado a comerciar con especies alienígenas mientras Apolo, reencarnado como Dios, hará frente a los nuevos retos de la reciente sociedad que vivirá una auténtica revolución con la llegada de una nave de la Tierra.

Necessity: the sequel to the acclaimed The Just City and The Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton's tales of gods, humans, and what they have to learn from one another. More than sixty-five years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history, and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the City's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form. Sixty years ago, the Just City schismed into five cities, each devoted to a different version of the original vision. Forty years ago, the five cities managed to bring their squabbles to a close. But in consequence of their struggle, their existence finally came to the attention of Zeus, who can't allow them to remain in deep antiquity, changing the course of human history. Convinced by Apollo to spare the Cities, Zeus instead moved everything on the island to the planet Plato, circling its own distant sun. Now, more than a generation has passed. The Cities are flourishing on Plato, and even trading with multiple alien species. Then, on the same day, two things happen. Pytheas dies as a human, returning immediately as Apollo in his full glory. And there's suddenly a human ship in orbit around Plato--a ship from Earth.

From the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author of Among Others, an utterly original novel about how stories are brought forth. He has been too many things to count. He has been a dragon with a boy on his back. He has been a scholar, a warrior, a lover, and a thief. He has been dream and dreamer. He has been a god. But “he” is in fact nothing more than a spark of idea, a character in the mind of Sylvia Harrison, 73, award-winning author of thirty novels over forty years. He has played a part in most of those novels, and in the recesses of her mind, Sylvia has conversed with him for years. But Sylvia won't live forever, any more than any human does. And he's trapped inside her cave of bone, her hollow of skull. When she dies, so will he. Now Sylvia is starting a new novel, a fantasy for adult readers, set in Thalia, the Florence-resembling imaginary city that was the setting for a successful YA trilogy she published decades before. Of course he's got a part in it. But he also has a notion. He thinks he knows how he and Sylvia can step off the wheel of mortality altogether. All he has to do is convince her.

"When it came down to it, you couldn't legislate against the economics of sex and gender any more than you could legislate against people being poor." It's the twenty-fourth century. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system--but for most of us, life is as precarious as it was in Dickensian England. Brothers Achille, Marcantonio, and Nore have been raised rich, but after their father spends the family fortune and puts a laser to his head, they're forced to face facts. The wealthy Luke Bailey is willing to pay top dollar for what's left of their estate, enough to buy Achille a commission in the space Navy. But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female--Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives. Over the next two decades, the now-female Marcantonio and Nore struggle to make lives for themselves in the service of their wealthy keeper. Then the alien invasion arrives.

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. With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic—rising from the every day into the universe itself.

"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent." Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future--all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past. The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome--and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her. Meanwhile, Apollo--stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does--has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human. Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives--the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself--to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

The warrior Sulien ap Gwien and her lord King Urdo have finally united the land of Tir Tanagiri into a kingdom ruled by justice under a single code of law. But where many see a hopeful future for the land, others believe they sense the seeds of a new tyranny. Soon Tir Tanagiri faces the blight of civil war, and Sulien ap Gwien must take up arms against former comrades and loved ones, fighting harder and harder to hold on to Urdo’s shining dream.Continuing the epic begun in The King’s Peace, this new novel brings the story of Sulien ap Gwien to a rousing and moving conclusion.

Sulien ap Gwien was seventeen when the Jarnish raiders came. Had she been armed when they found her, she could have taken them all. As it was, it took six of them to subdue her. She will never forgive them. Thus begins her story—a story that takes her back to her family, with its ancient ties to the Vincan empire that once ruled in Tir Tanagiri, and forward to Caer Tanaga, where the greatest man of his time, King Urdo, struggles to bind together the squabbling nobles and petty princes into a unified force that will drive out the barbarian invader and restore the King’s Peace. King Urdo will change Sulien’s life. She will see him for what he is: the greatest hope the country has. And he will see her for what she is: the greatest warrior of her day. Together they will fight and suffer for an age of the world, for the things that the world always needs and which never last. Ringing with the clash of arms and the songs of its people, rich with high magic and everyday life, The King’s Peace begins an epic of great deeds and down-to-earth people, told in language with the strength and flexibility of sharpened steel.

From acclaimed, award-winning author Jo Walton: Philosopher Kings, a tale of gods and humans, and the surprising things they have to learn from one another. Twenty years have elapsed since the events of The Just City. The City, founded by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, organized on the principles espoused in Plato’s Republic and populated by people from all eras of human history, has now split into five cities, and low-level armed conflict between them is not unheard-of. The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as "Pythias" in the City, his true identity known only to a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it’s evident, particularly to his precocious daughter Arete, that he is unhinged with grief.Along with Arete and several of his sons, plus a boatload of other volunteers--including the now fantastically aged Marsilio Ficino, the great humanist of Renaissance Florence--Pythias/Apollo goes sailing into the mysterious Eastern Mediterranean of pre-antiquity to see what they can find—possibly the man who may have caused his great grief, possibly communities of the earliest people to call themselves "Greek." What Apollo, his daughter, and the rest of the expedition will discover…will change everything.

When a friendly competition leads to the death of a beloved horse and incurs the wrath of the Horse Goddess, the kingdoms of the island of Tir Isarnagiri are doomed to suffer. As the goddess' curse chases them down the years, four friends destined for kingship-Conal, Emer, Darag, and Ferdia-are forced into conflict as their countries build towards war. Matters are complicated when Emer and Conal fall in love, and dream of escaping together from the machinations of their respective families. But Conal and Ferdia are rivals for the High Kingship of the island, and Conal cannot simply leave. The contest between them will lead to a visionary quest on a mountain sacred to the gods-and terrifying to men. Yet Emer faces an even greater struggle. For when war finally comes, Emer has two perform her duty to the homeland to which she owes everything, or protect the one she loves and be branded a traitor forever. The path she takes will become the stuff of legend, and forever alter the destiny of Tir Isarnagiri. Set in the world of Jo Walton's previous novels, The King's Peace and The King's Name , this book takes us to a shining era of dark powers, legendary heroes and passionate loves-all of them ruled by the hand of Fate.

For the first time, Jo Walton's critically acclaimed, genre-defying trilogy Thessaly: The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, Necessity will be available in a trade paperback omnibus. The goddess Athena and her brother Apollo think they are creating a utopia. Populate the island of Atlantis with extraordinary men, women, and children from throughout history. Become human and integrate with the harmonious society forged on the tenets of Plato's Republic. But they soon find out even paradise is susceptible to the unpredictability, violence, and lust of mortals and immortals alike. Spanning from sandy shores to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, gods and humans contend with their vices on a quest to achieve the ultimate society in critically acclaimed author Jo Walton's vigorous exploration of the human condition, Thessaly.

A tale of love, money, and family conflict--among dragons. A family deals with the death of their father. A son goes to court for his inheritance. Another son agonises over his father's deathbed confession. One daughter becomes involved in the abolition movement, while another sacrifices herself for her husband. And everyone in the tale is a dragon, red in tooth and claw. Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses... in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which the great and the good avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby. You have never read a novel like Tooth and Claw.

Allevata da una madre mezza matta che si diletta di magia, Morwenna Phelps trova rifugio in due mondi: tra gli spiriti che dimorano nei siti industriali abbandonati, nella sua città natale in Galles, e nei romanzi di fantascienza, suoi fedeli compagni, grazie ai quali la sua mente viaggia libera. Quando sua madre proverà a corrompere quegli spiriti per fini oscuri, la ragazza sarà costretta a confrontarsi con lei in una battaglia magica, che ucciderà la sua gemella e lascerà lei menomata. Fuggita in Inghilterra dal padre che conosce appena, Morwenna finisce in un collegio, dove, emarginata e sola, comincerà a dedicarsi alla magia a sua volta, in cerca di una cerchia di amici a lei più affini. Ma la sua magia attirerà anche l’attenzione della madre, trascinandola verso una resa dei conti che non può più essere rimandata… Sorprendente, insolito e irresistibile, Un altro mondo è allo stesso tempo la storia di una ragazza che lotta per fuggire da un’infanzia difficile, un eccezionale diario dei primi incontri con i grandi romanzi del fantasy e della fantascienza moderni, e infine l’avvincente cronaca della fuga da un antico incantesimo.

As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series.Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series.Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers.