Gailey, Sarah

Entry updated 7 August 2023. Tagged: Author.

(1990- ) US author whose involvement in American Fandom led to a 2018 Hugo award for best fan writer. They began to publish work of genre interest with "Stars" in The Colored Lens for September 2015. The River of Teeth sequence beginning with River of Teeth (2017) is set in an Alternate History America whose 1850s Jonbar Point is the importation of hippopotamuses as livestock, a plan which goes devastatingly wrong as the hippos, who are tusked, turn out to be feral. The plot follows the exploits of a team gathered together [for Seven Samurai see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] to get rid of them; the consequences of their blowing up a dam and unleashing the Mississippi River govern the remainder of the tale. Magic for Liars (2019), a singleton, is a Young Adult murder mystery complicated by much use of Magic; magic also determines the shape of When We Were Magic (2020).

Gailey's first novel for adults, Upright Women Wanted (2020), is set in the artifactual Wild West of a Near Future Dystopian oppressively heteronormative America, following its spunky protagonist's attempts to escape a heterosexual marriage by joining the upright women of the title; adventures ensue. The Echo Wife (2021) might be understood as a Bildungsroman via Cloning: the protagonist of the tale, a scientist involved in Genetic Engineering, has invented techniques for speeding the growth of clone new-borns, but unwisely creates a version of herself, who is made pregnant by her husband. The two women become close, and dance their way, at times awkwardly, remembering en suite the much earlier appalling behaviour of her/their father, and tracing redemptively the Identity maze they have embraced. [JC]

Sarah Gailey

born Fremont, California: 2 February 1990

works

series

River of Teeth

River of Teeth (New York: Tor.com, 2017) [River of Teeth: pb/Richard Anderson]
Taste of Marrow (New York: Tor.com, 2017) [River of Teeth: pb/Richard Anderson]
Worth Her Weight in Gold (New York: Tor.com, 2018) [ebook: first appeared 18 April 2018 Tor.com: River of Teeth: pb/Richard Anderson]
- American Hippo (New York: Tor.com, 2018) [omni of the above three plus additional story: River of Teeth: pb/Gregory Manchess]

individual titles

Magic for Liars (New York: Tor, 2019) [hb/Will Staehle]
Upright Women Wanted (New York: Tor.com, 2020) [hb/Will Staehle]
When We Were Magic (New York: Simon and Schuster/Simon Pulse, 2020) [hb/Amalia Alvarez]
The Echo Wife (New York: Tor, 2021) [hb/]
Just Like Home (New York: Tor, 2022) [hb/]

links

previous versions of this entry

Internet Archive