Tumbling After - Softcover

Witcover, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061053643 ISBN 13: 9780061053641

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 2006

Synopsis

Jack and Jilly Doone are twelve-year-old twins bound by blood and forbidden secrets. Running wild through endless August afternoons, they explore the tributaries of Chesapeake Bay, spinning fantasies and sneaking cigarettes. But when a near-drowning awakens a strange power in Jack, the line between fantasy and reality blurs. . . .

Kestrel is an airie, one of five mutant races born in the conflict known as the Viral Wars. With one companion from each of the other races—a delph, a merm, a mander, and a boggle—he sets out to battle human enemies sworn to exterminate mutantkind.

Now the destinies of two worlds move toward a shocking convergence . . . and a climax of violent transfiguration.

About this title

About the Author:

The author of Waking Beauty, Paul Witcover has also written a biography of Zora Neale Hurston and numerous short stories. He is the co-creator, with Elizabeth Hand, of the cult comic book series Anima and has served as the curator of the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series. His work has also appeared on HBO. He lives and writes in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

Two coming-of-age stories—that of pubescent twins Jack and Jilly Doone in 1977 America and that of Kestrel, a mutant 17-year-old of the distant future—converge in Witcover's compelling second novel (after 1997's Waking Beauty), which blends postapocalyptic SF with Philip K. Dick–like speculation on reality. In Kestrel's world, survivors of a viral war are divided into super-teched humans and super-powered mutants who battle each other endlessly. In the Doones' world, Jack seems to gain the power to alter reality after nearly drowning. The twin's Uncle Jimmy, a game designer, has devised "a role-playing game developed both to cash in on and undermine the success of Dungeons & Dragons." Jimmy's game scenario, in which he immerses the twins as pre-market testers, mirrors Kestrel's world. Jack's "power" begins to take over his life. Is he suffering from a breakdown fueled by sexual awakening, the new game and his preternaturally close relationship with Jilly, or has he somehow become involved in a multireality war fought for "the right to determine what is and isn't real"? Kestrel, meanwhile, is involved in just such a war. The increasingly disquieting parallel stories amount to an audacious toss of some complex dice, but the result is a winning, entertaining cross-genre roll. Agent, Chris Schelling at the Ralph Vicinanza Agency. (Mar. 1)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0061053643
• ISBN 13: 9780061053641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328