The Secret City » (New Edition)

Carol Emshwiller is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Pushcart Prize. She has received the Philip K. Dick, Hugo, and Nebula awards, as well as a 2005 World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Her novels include Carmen Dog, The Mount, and The Start of the End of It All. She lives in New York City.

Written in a voice that is accessible to both mainstream and genre readers, this gripping tale contains a contemporary political subtext that is packed with humanism, complexity, and subtle humor. This inventive story centers on a mysterious enclave protecting a lost culture, a hidden city in the wilderness where stranded aliens struggle to preserve their fragile society. Hoping for a better life, many have fled the Secret City in favor of trying to survive in the harsh human world; others remain concealed, living out a fading memory in hope of deliverance. When the mythical rescuers suddenly arrive, insisting on an immediate interplanetary return, these very-human aliens discover that neither world is truly their own.

Asimov's Science Fiction

Damn near perfect . . . touchingly and complexingly so.