Trace Elements cover art

Trace Elements

Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Trace Elements

By: Jo Walton, Ada Palmer
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From two of the most acclaimed writers in the field today, a groundbreaking look at how SF and fantasy writing―and reading!―work.

Jo Walton and Ada Palmer are two of the most innovative and insightful writers to emerge in the SF and fantasy genres in this century. As writers of fiction they’ve each won multiple awards. As commenters on SF and fantasy in print and in visual media, they’ve both sparked new conversations that expanded our imaginations and understanding of how SF and fantasy work, and what more it could be doing.

Now, in Trace Elements, Walton and Palmer have come together to write a book-length and supremely entertaining look at modern science fiction and fantasy, at how our genre is written and how it is read, that will join nonfiction works like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Language of the Night, Samuel R. Delany’s The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud on the short shelf of titles essential to all readers of our genre.©2026 Jo Walton and Ada Palmer (P)2027 Recorded Books
Literary History & Criticism
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