Odd-mannered, obsessive, withdrawn,Asterhas little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre & freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world, save for stories told around the cookfire.Asterlives in the low-deck slums of theHSSMatilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellumSouth. For generations, theMatildahas ferried the last of humanity to a mythicalPromised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions & deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers likeAster, who they consider to be less than human.When the autopsy ofMatilda'ssovereign reveals a surprising link between his death & her mother's suicide some quarter-century before,Asterretraces her mother's footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer & sowing the seeds of civil war,Asterlearns there may be a way off the ship if she's willing to fight for it.°°°Rivers Solomonwrites about life in the margins, where they are much at home. In addition to appearing on the Stonewall Honor List & winning a Firecracker Award, Solomon's debut novelAn Unkindness of Ghostswas a finalist for a Lambda, a Hurston/Wright, & a Locus award.Solomon'ssecond book,The Deep, was the winner of the 2020 Lambda Award & shortlisted for many others including the British Fantasy & World Fantasy awards, &Sorrowland,Solomon'smost recent novel, was awarded an Otherwise Award. Theirshort workappears in Black Warrior Review, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Best American Short Stories, Tor.com, Best American Horror & Dark Fantasy, & elsewhere.