Synopses & Reviews
An alluring new collection from the author of the New York Times Notable Book, Midnight RobberNalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, Sister Mine) is an internationally-beloved storyteller. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having "an imagination that most of us would kill for," her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are filled with striking imagery, unlikely beauty, and delightful strangeness.
In this long-awaited collection, Hopkinson continues to expand the boundaries of culture and imagination. Whether she is retelling The Tempest as a new Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or herding chickens that occasionally breathe fire, Hopkinson continues to create bold fiction that transcends boundaries and borders.
Review
Praise for Nalo HopkinsonOne of our most important writers.”
Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
A major talent.”
Karen Joy Fowler, author of Sister Moon and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Nalo Hopkinson has had a remarkable impact on popular fiction. Her work continues to question the very genres she adopts, transforming them from within through her fierce intelligence and her commitment to a radical vision that refuses easy consumption.”
Globe and Mail
Nalo Hopkinson makes me think of people like James Tiptree Jr., Roger Zelazny, Theodore Sturgeon and Keri Hulme; shes that good.
Spider Robinson, author of the Lifehouse trilogy and Very Hard Choices
One of science-fictions most inventive and brilliant writers. . . .”
New York Post
Nalo Hopkinson is tough on her protagonists, but she brings them through their trials in a wonderfully evocative, energetic, explosive language that is wholly new to speculative fiction, and that marks her as an exciting new voice in our literature.”
Edmonton Journal
. . . like Samuel R. Delaney and Octavia E. Butler, [Hopkinson] forces us to consider how inequities of race, gender, class and power might be played out in a dystopian future.”
The News Magazine of Black America
Caribbean science fiction? Nalo Hopkinson is staking her claim as one of its most notable authors. . . ."
Caribbean Travel and Life
Hopkinson is rightly lauded for having one of the more original new voices in SF, and the brilliance in her fiction shines equally from her evocative voice and the deep empathy she displays for her characters. Adding to the fun is the fact that Hopkinsons prose is a distinct pleasure to read: richly sensual, with high-voltage erotic content and gorgeous details.”
SCIFI.com
For Brown Girl in the Ring
Nalo Hopkinsons first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, is simply triumphant.”
Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
Hopkinson lives up to her advance billing.”
New York Times Book Review
[Hopkinson] has created a vivid world of urban decay and startling, dangerous magic, where the human heart is both a physical and metaphorical key.”
Publishers Weekly
Ive been telling people about Nalo Hopkinsons book . . . it is great.
Octavia E. Butler, author of Parable of the Sower
Brown Girl in the Ring is a wild story, colorful and enthralling . . . youll be sorry to go home again when you put it down.”
Tim Powers, author of The Stress of Her Regard and Declare
An impressive debut precisely because of Hopkinsons fresh viewpoint.”
Washington Post Book World
A parable of black feminist self-reliance, couched inpoetic language and the structural conventions of classic SF.”
Village Voice
Excellent . . . a bright, original mix of future urban decay and West Indian magic . . . .”
Denver Post
For Midnight Robber
. . . Hopkinson creates another captivating story set in a richly imagined world . . . rich with elements of fantasy, science fiction, and magic realism.”
VOYA
Like its predecessor, this novel bears evidence that Hopkinson owns one of the more important and original voices in SF.”
Publishers Weekly, starred review
. . . fantastic story, part science-fiction, part mythological fantasy. Personally, I loved every page.”
SF Review
Hopkinsons second novel, Midnight Robber, succeeds on an even grander scale. . . ."
New York Times
Midnight Robber demonstrates conclusively that [Hopkinson] is a major SF talent.”
Quill and Quire
For Skin Folk
This 15-story collection is a marvelous display of Nalo Hopkinsons talents, skills and insights into the human conditions of life, especially of the fantastic realities of the Caribbean. . . .” Everything is possible in her imagination.”
Science Fiction Chronicle
The Salt Roads succeeds impressively as a powerful and passionate meditation on myth and survival, and on the loss of the ancient psychic pathways that give the book its evocative title.”
Locus
Skin Folk is both entertaining and enlightening, and should not be missed.”
Strange Horizons
If you enjoyed the novels, dont let this slip past. If you missed the novels, let Skin Folk show you why you should run out and buy them.”
Analog
Nalo Hopkinson, award-winning author of Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber, has released an impressive collection of short stories entitled Skin Folk . . . well crafted and brilliantly written.”
Barnes and Noble
For The Salt Roads
The Salt Roads succeeds impressively as a powerful and passionate meditation on myth and survival, and on the loss of the ancient psychic pathways that give the book its evocative title.”
Locus
The Salt Roads is like nothing youve read before. . . . The characters stories are heartbreaking and beautiful, living beyond the novels pages. Hopkinsons writing is like a favorite song.”
Tananarive Due, American Book Award-winning author of The Living Blood
With her conjurers art, with daring and delightful audacity, Nalo Hopkinson reaches into the well of history.”
Sandra Jackson-Opoku, author of, The River Where Blood is Born
Sexy, disturbing, touching, wildly comic. A tour de force from one of our most striking new voices in fiction.”
Kirkus, starred review
The Salt Roads should be required reading for the next century. An electrifying bravura performance. . . .”
Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Drown
For The New Moons Arms
A winningly told tale filled with regional color.”
Kirkus, starred review
A novel that sweeps the reader into its world: vivid and richly nuanced, utterly realistic yet still somehow touched with magic . . . Hopkinsons writing is lush and note-perfect. . . .”
Toronto Star
New depths of wisdom, humor and insight.”
Seattle Times
[The New Moons Arms] is both moving and quiet; it has no end-of-the-world threat, no big pyrotechnicsbut the wonder, if quiet, is strong. I highly recommend it.”
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
For The Chaos
Hopkinson, who grew up in the Caribbean, mixes Jamaican legends, fairy tales, and sheer imagination to create this wildly inventive story.”
Booklist, starred review
Rich in voice, humor and dazzling imagery, studded with edgy ideas and wildly original, this multicultural mashuplike its heroinedefies categorization.”
Kirkus, starred review
I cannot recommend this book enough, especially for young girls/teens of color.”
Inside HigherEd
For Sister Mine
Shes a powerful writer with an imagination that most of us would kill for. I have read everything she has written and am in awe of her many gifts.”
Junot Diaz, Los Angeles Times
Her books always feel like glimpses into worlds that are fully detailed and stand on their own . . . . Another great novel from one of the best fantasy authors working today.”
io9.com
The author of sci-fi classics The Salt Roads [and Brown Girl in the Ring] . . . conjures up another hit with Sister Mine.”
Essence Magazine
An engaging, messy fable about the interconnectedness of even the little things in our lives. . .”
NPR
The variety also makes for a novel thats engaging and difficult to put down, and the world of Sister Mine feels rich and full. . . .”
Los Angeles Review of Books
Another great novel from one of the best fantasy authors working today.”
io9
Review
Praise for Falling in Love With HominidsHopkinson's stories dazzle”
NPR
The stories all share a common thread of magic, which is often woven, whether subtly or blatantly, into the fabric of everyday reality, allowing characters to react to the strange or the impossible as it crosses into their world. Hopkinson also draws frequently on her Caribbean upbringing and heritage, and her characters voices are distinct and authentic, both in their speech patterns and in their ways of looking at their surroundings. Hopkinsons fans will be delighted by these examples of her wide-ranging imagination.”
Publishers Weekly
A Barnes and Noble Booksellers Pick for August 2015
The award-winning author of Midnight Robber and Brown Girl in the Ring returns with a collection of fantastical short fiction, assembling a decades worth of stories of magic and the supernatural intersecting with everyday life.”
BarnesandNoble.com
Every reader will surely find something to love, as this collection is often hilariously funny, deeply tragic, intensely engaging, and strongly steeped with fantastic elements.”
Civilian Reader
Hopkinson does some beautiful things with the art of writing, her imagination is without bounds, and she challenges both readers and writers to go beyond what we see as the status quo.”
Bibliotropic
A Book Riot Best Book We Read in July
Every story feels like a perfectly formed separate entity, but pulling them together is the effortless blending of the fantastic and the mundane.”
Book Riot
Falling in Love with Hominids is a wonderful treat for Nalo Hopkinson fans and a fantastic introduction for new readers.”
New York Journal of Books
A New in Books Best New Fantasy Book
I cant wait to read more of [Hopkinsons] work in the future because I loved the speculative worlds in this short story collection.”
Paper Wanderer
Nalo Hopkinson paints the places she knows in the way that Márquez embodies the soul of Central America, or the way Bradbury captures Illinois summers.”
Fiction Foresight
...Falling in Love with Hominids [which] is a pleasure from beginning to end.”
Worlds Without End
This is an outstanding collection that really gives insight into [Hopkinsons] storytelling, the breadth and insight with which she writes.”
The Conversationalist
...this is a fantastic collection that I encourage lovers of fantasy and science fiction to pick up.”
The Illustrated Page
Praise for Nalo Hopkinson
One of our most important writers.”
Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
A major talent.”
Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
One of the best fantasy authors working today.”
io9
An exciting new voice in our literature.”
Edmonton Journal
...like Samuel R. Delaney and Octavia E. Butler, [Hopkinson] forces us to consider how inequities of race, gender, class and power might be played out in a dystopian future.”
The News Magazine of Black America
Hopkinsons prose is a distinct pleasure to read: richly sensual, with high-voltage erotic content and gorgeous details.”
SCIFI.com
For Brown Girl in the Ring
Nalo Hopkinsons first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, is simply triumphant.”
Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
Hopkinson lives up to her advance billing.”
New York Times Book Review
[Hopkinson] has created a vivid world of urban decay and startling, dangerous magic, where the human heart is both a physical and metaphorical key.”
Publishers Weekly
An impressive debut precisely because of Hopkinsons fresh viewpoint.”
Washington Post Book World
A parable of black feminist self-reliance, couched inpoetic language and the structural conventions of classic SF.”
Village Voice
For The Salt Roads
Hopkinsons writing is like a favorite song.”
Tananarive Due, American Book Award-winning author of The Living Blood
With her conjurers art, with daring and delightful audacity, Nalo Hopkinson reaches into the well of history.”
Sandra Jackson-Opoku, author of The River Where Blood is Born
Sexy, disturbing, touching, wildly comic. A tour de force from one of our most striking new voices in fiction.”
Kirkus, starred review
Synopsis
Nalo Hopkinson (
Brown Girl in the Ring,
Skin Folk) is widely hailed as a significant voice in Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American fiction. She has been dubbed by Junot Diaz as "one of our most important writers," by the
New York Times as stunning,” and by Dorothy Allison as simply triumphant.”
Hopkinson's vivid tales are an eclectic mix of modern fantasy and folklore. In them she continues to expands the boundaries of culture and imagination. These stories are occupied by creatures unpredictable and strange: chickens that breathe fire, adults who eat children, and spirits that haunt shopping malls.
Falling in Love with Hominids presents more than a dozen years of Hopkinson's new, uncollected fiction, much of which is unavailable in print, as well as one original story, "Flying Lessons."
Synopsis
Hailed by the
Los Angeles Times as having an imagination that most of us would kill for,” World Fantasy Award-winning author Nalo Hopkinson (
Brown Girl in the Ring) is a critically-acclaimed storyteller. Her Afro-Carribean, Canadian, and American influences shine in unique stories that are by turns dark and whimsical. Hopkinsons unforgettable fiction is filled with striking imagery, unlikely beauty, and delightful strangeness.
Falling in Love with Hominids presents over a dozen years of Hopkinsons newly collected fiction, including one original piece. Whether she is retelling The Tempest in a Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or releasing chickens that unpredictably breathe fire, Hopkinson is an author of myriad gifts and much to offer.
About the Author
World Fantasy Award-winning author
Nalo Hopkinson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and also spent her childhood in Trinidad and Guyana before her family moved to Toronto when she was sixteen. Her groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy features diverse characters and the mixing of folklore into her works. Hopkinson won the Warner Aspect First Novel contest for
Brown Girl in the Ring, as well as the John W. Campbell and Locus Awards. Her novel
Midnight Robber was a
New York Times Notable Book and she has also received the Spectrum, Sunburst, Campbell, and Prix Aurora awards.
Though she has published multiple works, Hopkinson has faced many obstacles, including suffering from anemia and fibromyalgia. She spent years too sick to read or write, and was sometimes homeless. Her view on these dark periods can be both realistic and humorous: But every so often Ill go through an old notebook or find a file I dont recognize and open it up, and theres a page or two of writing that I did during that time that I don not remember. At some level I was still writing. The cool part about it is, the writing is pretty good!” (Locus, September 2013)
Hopkinson currently teaches in the Creative Writing department at the University of California, Riverside.