I’m thrilled to announce the acquisition of two novellas from rising short fiction author JY Yang. The Red Threads of Fortune and The River Runs Red chart the lives of Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of Protector Sanao, as they struggle to find their place in Ea, a world rent by terrible divisions of power. Mokoya, a prophet and a Tensor, wields all the power and fury of the five elements, but feels powerless to overcome the dire visions that have haunted her since her childhood. Akeha, resentful of his twin sister’s gifts, finds power among the controversial Machinists, wielding technological advances that are reshaping society around them.
With two such strong and different characters, we couldn’t see our way to imposing primacy over one of their stories of the other. As such, Tor.com plans to release both novellas simultaneously, allowing readers to discover Mokoya and Akeha in the order they prefer as their stories interweave. Look forward to a lot more information about the twins, the Tensors, the Machinists, and the fascinating world Yang has created!
JY Yang is a lapsed journalist, a former practicing scientist, and a master of hermitry. A queer, postcolonial intersectional feminist, her work often examines issues of race, class, and gender. Her short stories have been published in a variety of venues, including Lightspeed, Uncanny, Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons. She is from Singapore and is currently finishing her MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She can be found online at MissHallelujah and on Twitter as @halleluyang. She had this to say about the sale:
I am absolutely thrilled that THE RED THREADS OF FORTUNE and THE RIVER RUNS RED have found a home with a publishing house as respected as Tor.com. When I created a world for these novellas, I infused it with a melange of everything I wanted to see in epic fantasy: Adventure, romance, martial magic, megafauna. Protagonists who are all sorts of queer and Asian. I am delighted that this wild cocktail will now find its way to readers and I look forward to sharing this world with them.
The Red Threads of Fortune and The River Runs Red were acquired in a deal with DongWon Song of the Morhaim Literary Agency. They’re planned to publish in the summer of 2017.
