The Ghost Sister

Liz Williams

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The Ghost Sister won the Philip K. Dick Award nomination. On the planet Monde D'Isle, Mevennen ai Mordha is an outcast, a "landblind" person who can't feel the energy under the earth or the pull of the tides. Her ailment is a weakness, leaving her at risk of being harmed, even by members of her own family. For on Monde D'Isle, only the strong survive. Now a crew from humanity's tamed and civilized homeland, Irie St. Syre, has been sent to investigate this ancient human colony. The last transmission received from the settlement—before it was apparently abandoned by its visionary leader—described the world as cursed. On board is Shu Gho, a writer of myths and folktales and a descendent of one of the original colonists. She has traveled over a hundred years to learn of its fate. Instead of finding a terraformed habitat, the crew is shocked to find a bleak, unwelcoming landscape. And when Shu meets Mevennen and her family, she is drawn into the mysterious evolution of these not-quite-human people—with their clawed hands, fierce connection to nature, and predatory bloodlust. Together, the two women embark on a quest to do right by a world that neither truly understands, while the danger of human intervention—past and present—threatens them all.