The Stone Gods
Harcourt, April 2008
On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet -- pristine and habitable, like our own was 65 million years ago, before we took it to the edge of
destruction. And off the air, Billie Crusoe and the renegade
robo-sapian Spike are falling in love. Along with Captain Handsome and
Pink, they're assigned to colonize the new blue planet. But when a
technical maneuver intended to make it inhabitable backfires, Billie
and Spike's flight to the future becomes a surprising return to the
distant past -- "Everything is imprinted forever with what it once
was." What will happen when their story combines with the world's
story? Will they -- and we -- ever find a safe landing place?
An interplanetary love story -- of Billie and Spike, of the past and
the future; a traveler's tale; a hymn to the beauty of the world: The Stone Gods
is Jeanette Winterson at her brilliant best. What begins as a witty,
satirical futurist adventure deepens into a dazzling exploration of our
relationship to environment, to power and technology, and to what
defines us as humans. Playful, passionate, polemical, and frequently
very funny, this is a novel that will change forever the stories we
tell about the earth, about love, and about stories themselves.
hardcover | ISBN: 9780151014910 | Publication Date: April 2008
Reviews:
"The Stone Gods is a vivid, cautionary tale -- or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species."
--Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (London)
"Winterson's most adventurous and engrossing novel in some years . . .
If she keeps on like this there may be a glimmer of hope for the future
after all."
--The Daily Telegraph (London)
"[Winterson] can shift shape, self, and time, she uses repetition
as if it were spell-making. Everything she does suspends readers
between the mind and the body, between 'atom and dream.' She is a kind
of magician. She can do anything."
--Ali Smith
"This witty, challenging and thought-provoking novel should be
essential reading for anyone concerned how we live and how we might
survive."
--Daily Mail (London)
