Shades Within Us : Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders

Journey with twenty-one speculative fiction authors through

the fractured borders of human migration to examine the dreams,

struggles, and triumphs of those who choose—or are forced—to leave home

and familiar places.



Migration. A transformation of time, place, and being . . .



WHO ARE THE SHADES WITHIN US?



We

are called drifters, nomads. We are expatriates, evacuees, and

pilgrims. We are colonists, aliens, explorers; strangers,

visitors—intruders, conquerors—exiles, asylum seekers, and . . .

outsiders.



An American father shields his son from Irish

discrimination. A Chinese foreign student wrestles to safeguard her

family at the expense of her soul. A college graduate is displaced by

technology. A Nigerian high school student chooses between revenge and

redemption. A bureaucrat parses the mystery of Taiwanese time

travellers. A defeated alien struggles to assimilate into human culture.

A Czechoslovakian actress confronts the German WWII invasion. A child

crosses an invisible border wall. And many more.



Stories that

transcend borders, generations, and cultures. Each is a glimpse into our

human need in face of change: to hold fast to home, to tradition, to

family; and yet to reach out, to strive for a better life.



Featuring Original Stories by

Vanessa Cardui, Elsie Chapman, Kate Heartfield, S.L. Huang, Tyler

Keevil, Matthew Kressel, Rich Larson,Tonya Liburd, Karin Lowachee,

Seanan McGuire, Brent Nichols, Julie Nováková, Heather Osborne, Sarah

Raughley, Alex Shvartsman, Amanda Sun, Jeremy Szal, Hayden Trenholm, Liz

Westbrook-Trenholm, Christie Yant & Alvaro Zinos-Amaro



With An Introduction by Eric Choi & Gillian Clinton



Edited by Susan Forest & Lucas K. Law



Anthologies in this series (Strangers Among Us, The Sum of Us, Where the Stars Rise, Shades Within Us) have been recommended by Publishers Weekly, Booklist (American Library Association), Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Locus, Foreword Reviews, and Quill & Quire.



Praise for Shades Within Us



".

. . addresses issues surrounding migration and borders at a very

poignant moment in history . . . despite being speculative, many of

these stories read like they were ripped from present-day headlines . . .

this collection do a great job of asking readers not only to reflect on

their own lives but also to consider the lives of others." —Booklist (American Library Association)



"With

each story, the authors expand their settings and reality into a

universe of broader potential to make sense of the tensions that plague

the twenty-first century. Even as they represent foreign existences, the

problems remain the same—family, love, belonging, identity, survival . .

. take a fresh approach to their subjects and conjure terrifying

futures brought on by climate change, greed, and corruption of power.

Political and daring, this collection adds to the future imagined by

Philip K. Dick, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, and Aldous Huxley." —Foreword Reviews



".

. . Shades Within Us is a timely collection that invites us to ask

whether we still do (or still should) live in a space of national

borders and national definitions of identity. It invites us to use our

speculative imagination to think through new ways of understanding

selfhood in relation to the borders, boxes, and categories that are

placed around us." —Speculating Canada (Derek Newman-Stille)