NPR Review: EVERFAIR by Nisi Shawl

My review of Nisi Shawl’s much-anticipated steampunk alt-history novel Everfair is now up at NPR Books! Behold its stunning cover by Victo Ngai! Rejoice if you, like me, have been excited about this book’s creation for at least the last six years!

Here’s a bit of the review:

The scope and ambition of this book is immense. Shawl has marshalled a wealth of research in imagining, not only an alternate history for the Congo, but a cascading sequence of consequences for global politics in its wake. The cast of characters is beautifully diverse in terms of faith, ability, ethnicities, sexual orientation and nationalities, making the web of relationships intricate and fraught; Shawl is brilliant at showing where the various ideals, motivations and desires for Everfair as a utopian experiment bump up against each other. From wealthy white families whose free attitudes towards sexuality and plural marriage compromise their return to…