Emrys, Ruthanna
Entry updated 10 October 2022. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) US author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Exposure Therapy" in Analog for January-February 2007; it has been assembled with several other stories as Imperfect Commentaries (2019). In her first series, the Near Future Innsmouth Legacy sequence beginning with The Litany of Earth (14 May 2014 Tor.com; 2014 ebook), the inhabitants of Innsmouth – who first appear in H P Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936 chap) – have been interned by the American government, responding to the "threat" of the Monsters, who are here seen as sympathetic (see Race in SF). The "monster" protagonist of the sequence as a whole fights to recuperate her home town, once threatened by the government, though ultimately the threat of developers is greater.
There are traditional elements out of the SF Megatext in Emrys's first standalone novel, A Half-Built Garden (2022), including a representation of Near Future Homo sapiens as bound on planetary suicide (see Climate Change; Ecology; Overpopulation; Pollution); plus First Contact by an Alien delegation from the civilized galaxy, offering salvation willy-nilly; and malevolent corporations which, though exiled to guarded Islands, threaten to complete the task of self-destruction. The story itself, focusing on the first human visited, is something of a family romance, and is unpacked with a winning clemency. [JC]
Ruthanna Emrys
born
works
series
The Innsmouth Legacy
- The Litany of Earth (New York: Tor.com, 2014) [ebook: first appeared 14 May 2014 Tor.com: Innsmouth Legacy: na/Allen Williams]
- Winter Tide (New York: Tor.com, 2017) [Innsmouth Legacy: hb/John Jude Palencar]
- Deep Roots (New York: Tor.com, 2018) [Innsmouth Legacy: hb/John Jude Palencar]
individual titles
- A Half-Built Garden (New York: Tordotcom, 2022) [hb/Mark Smith]
collections and stories
- Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land (New York: Tor.com, 2014) [ebook: first appeared 20 August 2014 Tor.com: na/Scott Bakal]
- The Deepest Rift (New York: Tor.com, 2014) [ebook: first appeared 24 May 2015 Tor.com: na/Victor Mosquera]
- The Word of Flesh and Soul (New York: Tor.com, 2018) [ebook: first appeared 24 May 2015 Tor.com: na/Rovina Cal]
- Imperfect Commentaries (Maple Shade, New Jersey: Lethe Press, 2019) [coll: pb/Cameron McClure]
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