Aliya Whiteley writes across many different genres and lengths. Her first published full-length novels, Three Things About Me and Light Reading, were comic crime adventures. Her 2014 SF-horror novella The Beauty was shortlisted for the James Tiptree and Shirley Jackson awards. The following historical-SF novella, The Arrival of Missives, was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, and her noir novel The Loosening Skin was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award.
Whiteley's latest novel, Skyward Inn, is a classic science fiction story of division between worlds, states, families, and memories.
At Tor.com she tagged five top SFF books about division and separation, including:
Divided Kingdom by Rupert ThomsonRead about the other entries on the list.
First published in 2005, Thomas’ vision of a United Kingdom chopped into quarters to house a populace divided by personality type is a dystopia full of ideas that feel ever more relevant. Once sorted into Humors (the Ancient Greek system of medical categorisation) children are relocated to live with families designated as similar in temperament. The main character, Thomas, is Sanguine—with his new, cheerful family he appears to thrive, until a trip over the border to the Phlegmatic quarter arouses old memories. For a country split apart by razor-wire boundaries and strict rules, Thomson finds beautiful moments. Or maybe that’s simply down to the exceptional quality of his writing.
--Marshal Zeringue
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