The Liminal War: a novel (The Liminal People, 3) - Softcover

Jama-Everett, Ayize

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1618731017 ISBN 13: 9781618731012

Publisher: Small Beer Press, 2015

Synopsis

Locus Recommended Reading

When Taggert's adopted daughter goes missing he suspects the hand of an old enemy. He gathers friends, family, and even those who don't quite trust that he has left his violent past behind. But their search leads them to an unexpected place, the past, and the consequences of their journey have a price that is higher than they can afford.

Praise for The Liminal People:

"A great piece of genre fiction. But picking which genre to place it in isn't easy. The first in a planned series, it's got the twists and taut pacing of a thriller, the world-warping expansiveness of a fantasy yarn, and even the love-as-redemption arc of a romance. Oh yeah, a lot of the characters in it have superhuman powers, too."—The Rumpus

"Ayize's imagination will mess with yours, and the world won't ever look quite the same again."—Nalo Hopkinson

"An action-packed thriller and a careful look at the moral dilemmas of those whose powers transcend humanity."—Publishers Weekly

The enigmatic quagmire that is Ayize Jama-Everett has been making his presence felt all across this world since 1974. In New York, California, Morocco, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, he has impressed, reviled, and astonished with his amazing feats of mental alacrity and mystical inebriation. Despite being degreed in both divinity and psychology, the forlorn artist stakes his reputation and honor on the calling of author. He is known to be cunning in the ways of the bottle, the pen, and the pistol.

About this title

About the Author

Ayize Jama-Everett: Ayize Jama-Everett was born in 1974 and raised in Harlem, New York. Since then he has traveled extensively in Northern Africa, New Hampshire, and Northern California. He holds a Master's in Clinical Psychology and a Master's in Divinity. He teaches religion and psychology at Starr King School for the Ministry when he's not working as a school therapist at the College Preparatory School. When not educating, studying, or beating himself up for not writing enough, he's usually enjoying aged rums and practicing his aim.

Review

Locus Recommended Reading List

"The Liminal War bounces between scenes of high-octane, superpowered battles, and surprisingly low-key interludes. The entire middle of the novel follows Taggert, Tamara, and Mico, the high priest of the mannah, as they travel back in time to 1971 so that Mico can jam with a young Bob Marley. Music, in fact, has tremendous power in this story, and the final confrontation with Nardeen is powered by the music of Robert Johnson, whom the group meet in 1938 in the book's final third.... Books like The Liminal War and The Entropy of Bones won't make up for the fact that the dominant genre of our pop culture is so completely wedded to the past and the status quo, but they point the way to how that might if we embrace change and creativity someday change."
Strange Horizons

"In Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal War, the family one chooses is just as important as the one a person is born into. Taggert is a Liminal,” a being who can manipulate human molecules and DNA, allowing him to both harm and heal. When his adopted daughter is kidnapped by his psychotic former mentor, Taggert will rent the fabric of time and space to make sure his daughter is found before his former master can twist her mind. While there are forces stronger than Liminals bent on stopping Taggert and his friends a pot-smoking god and a musician who takes him back to 1970s London they may be outmatched by Taggert’s biological daughter, Tamara, who will risk her own life to save her sister’s."
Nancy Hightower, Washington Post

"Like Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler before him, Jama-Everett has a knack for braiding issues of spirituality and race throughout a compelling fantasy landscape."
Leilani Clark, KQED

"It’s been a long wait since Jama-Everett’s 2009 debut, The Liminal People, but the same raw wattage that lit up healer/killer Taggert’s epic introduction to his daughter, Tamara, and his split with his sociopathic mentor, Nordeen, is at work in this rich, dense sequel. This episode opens with a characteristic blast of pure psychic chaos from Tamara, who’s discovered that Prentis, a child Taggert calls mine by choice,” has disappeared from the sensory realm commanded by superpowered liminals like Taggert’s family. Taggert’s sure that Prentis isn’t dead, but beyond that he’s stumped. His lover, Samantha, guides him to the Rasta-tinged commune of London’s Eel Pie Island, where he encounters the avatar of a four-billion-year-old vegetable god who allies with him in the search. And that’s just the first 30 pages. Jama-Everett writes with such cyclonic energy and verbal legerdemain that occasionally the plot has to be taken on faith, but the noir-infused verve of the telling makes it all work."
Publishers Weekly

"A scrappy group of people with superpowers who careen through a criminal underground, the space-time continuum, and frequently outrageous battles to rescue a young woman who's gone missing. Taggert, a former criminal, can "read bodies" and manipulate them on a molecular level. He's lying low in London, working a shadowy business of healing people with terminal diseases and keeping an eye on his teenage daughter, Tamara, and adopted daughter, Prentis. Both Tamara and Prentis are also "liminals" people with supernatural abilities and survivors of Taggert's criminal past. When Prentis vanishes from the planet, invisible even to Tamara's powerful telepathy, Taggert and Tamara set out to look for her. They find themselves thrown into alliances with legendary musicians and the worshipers of a strange god and pitted against viciously ruthless nonhuman entities called "alters." The plot moves swiftly, cramming incident after incident into a novel that seems surprisingly slim for this breed of action-adventure. . . . An engaging sequel that sets its likable cast of characters against a fast-paced sequence of dangers."
Kirkus Reviews

"The Liminal War did something I thought was impossible. It was even better than its predecessor, which knocked my socks off when I read it last year. Science fiction and fantasy fans, run don’t walk to go read Ayize Jama-Everett’s Liminal series."
A Bookish Type

"The Liminal War is thus rich in action and meaning that is impressive for its short length. . . . an effective and remarkable novel . . . I really look forward to the next entry in this series, the further growth of its characters and its textured layers of Black culture and history."
Skiffy and Fanty

Locus Recommended Reading List

"The Liminal War bounces between scenes of high-octane, superpowered battles, and surprisingly low-key interludes. The entire middle of the novel follows Taggert, Tamara, and Mico, the high priest of the mannah, as they travel back in time to 1971 so that Mico can jam with a young Bob Marley. Music, in fact, has tremendous power in this story, and the final confrontation with Nardeen is powered by the music of Robert Johnson, whom the group meet in 1938 in the book's final third.... Books like The Liminal War and The Entropy of Bones won't make up for the fact that the dominant genre of our pop culture is so completely wedded to the past and the status quo, but they point the way to how that might―if we embrace change and creativity―someday change."
― Strange Horizons

"In Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal War, the family one chooses is just as important as the one a person is born into. Taggert is a “Liminal,” a being who can manipulate human molecules and DNA, allowing him to both harm and heal. When his adopted daughter is kidnapped by his psychotic former mentor, Taggert will rent the fabric of time and space to make sure his daughter is found before his former master can twist her mind. While there are forces stronger than Liminals bent on stopping Taggert and his friends ― a pot-smoking god and a musician who takes him back to 1970s London ― they may be outmatched by Taggert’s biological daughter, Tamara, who will risk her own life to save her sister’s."
― Nancy Hightower, Washington Post

"Like Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler before him, Jama-Everett has a knack for braiding issues of spirituality and race throughout a compelling fantasy landscape."
― Leilani Clark, KQED

"It’s been a long wait since Jama-Everett’s 2009 debut, The Liminal People, but the same raw wattage that lit up healer/killer Taggert’s epic introduction to his daughter, Tamara, and his split with his sociopathic mentor, Nordeen, is at work in this rich, dense sequel. This episode opens with a characteristic blast of pure psychic chaos from Tamara, who’s discovered that Prentis, a child Taggert calls “mine by choice,” has disappeared from the sensory realm commanded by superpowered liminals like Taggert’s family. Taggert’s sure that Prentis isn’t dead, but beyond that he’s stumped. His lover, Samantha, guides him to the Rasta-tinged commune of London’s Eel Pie Island, where he encounters the avatar of a four-billion-year-old vegetable god who allies with him in the search. And that’s just the first 30 pages. Jama-Everett writes with such cyclonic energy and verbal legerdemain that occasionally the plot has to be taken on faith, but the noir-infused verve of the telling makes it all work."
― Publishers Weekly

"A scrappy group of people with superpowers who careen through a criminal underground, the space-time continuum, and frequently outrageous battles to rescue a young woman who's gone missing. Taggert, a former criminal, can "read bodies" and manipulate them on a molecular level. He's lying low in London, working a shadowy business of healing people with terminal diseases and keeping an eye on his teenage daughter, Tamara, and adopted daughter, Prentis. Both Tamara and Prentis are also "liminals"―people with supernatural abilities―and survivors of Taggert's criminal past. When Prentis vanishes from the planet, invisible even to Tamara's powerful telepathy, Taggert and Tamara set out to look for her. They find themselves thrown into alliances with legendary musicians and the worshipers of a strange god and pitted against viciously ruthless nonhuman entities called "alters." The plot moves swiftly, cramming incident after incident into a novel that seems surprisingly slim for this breed of action-adventure. . . . An engaging sequel that sets its likable cast of characters against a fast-paced sequence of dangers."
― Kirkus Reviews

"The Liminal War did something I thought was impossible. It was even better than its predecessor, which knocked my socks off when I read it last year. Science fiction and fantasy fans, run―don’t walk―to go read Ayize Jama-Everett’s Liminal series."
― A Bookish Type

"The Liminal War is thus rich in action and meaning that is impressive for its short length. . . . an effective and remarkable novel . . . I really look forward to the next entry in this series, the further growth of its characters and its textured layers of Black culture and history."
― Skiffy and Fanty

About this edition

• Publisher: Small Beer Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1618731017
• ISBN 13: 9781618731012
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192