Down in the Sea of Angels

An intense and thoughtful time-travelling dystopian fantasy where three individuals, psychically linked through time, fight enslavement, exploitation, and environmental collapse.;A great read for fans of Emily St. John Mandel. In the year 2106, climate change has altered the world, transforming borders, cities, and socioeconomic structures. Additionally, a cosmic event known as the ‘Bloom’ has awakened psionic abilities in a small percentage of the population. One such individual is Maida Chao, who possesses the ability of psychometry, a gift that allows her to “read” the objects she touches and know its entire history. Newly employed with the Golden Gate Cultural Recovery Project in the area once known as San Francisco Bay, she must learn how to navigate the parameters of her abilities as well as the politics of the organization she works for. Until a chance encounter with a political leader’s watch reveals a plan to eliminate psionic powers, and the people who possess them. People like her. Terrified, but left with few options, Maida continues work at the GGCRP, when she stumbles upon a teacup and is psychically plunged into the lives of two of its previous owners – Ethan Chao of 2006, a “bourgeois bohemian” working his corporate design job while longing for greater purpose; and Li Nuan of 1906, an indentured servant in a Chinatown brothel. On discovering that these two people are distant relatives of hers, a strong psychic connection is made and Maida realizes she can use the conduit of the teacup to send a message back through time, giving her the chance to warn her ancestors of the coming climate collapse and save her own life.

Auteur
Khan Wong has published poetry, played cello in an earnest folk-rock duo, and been an internationally known hula hoop teacher and performer. He's toured with a circus and produced circus arts shows in San Francisco, where he also worked as a grantmaker with a  public sector arts funding agency. His debut novel, The Circus Infinite, was a finalist for the Lambda LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction Award 2023 and long-listed for the BSFA Best Novel Award.

Texte du rabat

An intense and thoughtful time-hopping dystopian fantasy where three individuals, psychically linked through time, fight enslavement, exploitation, and environmental collapse. A great read for fans of Emily St. John Mandel.

In the year 2106, climate change has altered the world, transforming borders, cities, and socioeconomic structures. Additionally, a cosmic event known as the “Bloom” has awakened psionic abilities in a small percentage of the population.

One such individual is Maida Sun, who possesses the ability to know the history of objects she touches. In the course of her new job with a cultural recovery project in San Francisco, she comes across an object that plunges her into the lives of Li Nuan, a sex-trafficked girl in a Chinatown brothel in 1906 longing for freedom, and Nathan, a tech-designer and hedonist in 2006 seeking greater purpose.

When a chance encounter with a political leader’s watch reveals a plan to eliminate psions – people like her – Maida must find a way to stop his agenda before it gains traction.

Flashes of the past and glimpses of the future provide Maida, Li Nuan and Nathan clues to help their own situations as they, each in their own way, confront exploitation and fight for liberation while living under the specter of environmental collapse.