Filter House — Nisi Shawl

Co-winner of the 2008 James Tiptree, Jr. Award; finalist for the 2009 World Fantasy Award

The collection's fourteen tales offer a haunting montage that works its magic subtly on the reader's subconscious.

“From the exotic, baroque complexities of ‘At the Huts of Ajala' to the stark, folktale purity of ‘The Beads of Ku,' these fourteen superbly written stories will weave around you a ring of dark, dark magic.” -- Ursula K. Le Guin

“Nisi Shawl uses the tools of future and fable, usually used to explore the other, the future, and the mysterious, to magically reveal what and who we all are here and today.” -- Tobias Buckell

“Sometimes enigmatic, often surprising, always marvelous. This lovely collection will take you, like a magic carpet, to some strange and wonderful places.” -- Karen Joy Fowler

“This exquisitely rendered debut collection of 11 reprints and three originals ranges into the past and future to explore identity and belief in a dazzling variety of settings. “At the Huts of Ajala, a folktale concerning a girl wrestling with a trickster god before her birth, is full of urgent and delightful imagery, while “Wallamelon” is an elegaic, sophisticated exploration of the Blue Lady myth. Of the several science fiction stories included, the strongest are “Good Boy,” an engrossing experiment in computer psychology, African gods and postcolonial anxiety, and “Shiomah's Land,” a cross-genre bildungsroman involving a girl who becomes the wife of a goddess. The concluding tale, “The Beads of Ku,” is an utterly arresting, authoritatively delivered tale concerning the diplomacy of marriage and the economy of the land of the dead. The threads of folklore, religious magic, family and the search for a cohesive self are woven with power and lucidity throughout this panorama of race, magic and the body.” Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, Aug 2008