In a ruined world, where wealthy humanspush health and longevity to extremes and surround themselves with a shiningmetal wall, privilege and security is predicated on the services of clonedNeandertals, and the exploitation of women in the shanty towns and wastelandsbeyond the fortress city.
This isthe frightening yet moving story of orphaned Alida and her younger sisterGraycie, and their struggle for survival in the Demi-Settlements outside thewall. When the sisters are forced to enter the City by very different meansthey risk being separated forever.
ClonedNeandertal officer, Shuqba is exiled to a security outpost in theDemi-Settlements when she fails to adhere to the impossible standards set forher species within the City. Will she offer a lifeline to Alida or betray her?
The Shining Wall is at once a frightening parable ofour unjust world of haves and have nots, a richly imagined yet thrilling storyof technological control and the fight for survival, and a paean to femalefriendship and power.
'Gripping from the word GO. A fearlessly feminist imagining of the entire fractured human genus in afuture none of us should ever have to face. The Shining Wall enshrinesfamiliar relationships even as it destroys genre tropes about a woman's role ina ruined world. Leave it to a new voice like this to set the post-apocalypticconstruction on its ear. A triumph of realistic science fiction.' - Meg Elison, author of TheBook of the Unnamed Midwife
'Grittyand voicey, perhaps prescient, this is a gripping dystopia from a shining newvoice.' - Marlee Jane Ward, author of Welcome to Orphancorp and Psynode
