A Wall Is Also a Road

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From bestselling author Annalee Newitz, A Wall Is Also a Road is a thought-provoking science fiction adventure about the meaning of life and love, seen through the many eyes of an alien grad student studying a familiar backwater planet. Perfect for fans of Becky Chambers, Ryka Aoki, and Martha Wells.

Gardenpath is a graduate student in biology who desperately wants to pass their exams with the highest honor possible: a prize given to scholars who discover something truly novel in the universe. Gardenpath also happens to be an amoeba–a slime mold, to be exact–from an ancient civilization that dwells in a vast network of towers between the stars. Seeking their prize, Gardenpath heads to a remote, dangerous planet that other researchers have dismissed as dead and uninteresting. There, they are surprised to discover a complicated ecosystem unlike anything they've ever encountered–including some peculiar, multicellular animals who seem to have language and culture.

To learn more about these animals, Gardenpath changes their shape to resemble one of them. And that's how they meet a creature named Murtis, who lives in a city she calls Pompeii and works in a brothel known to locals as "the lupanar." Unfazed by a visitor who says she's from the stars, Murtis takes Gardenpath into her care, introducing her to the seaside tourist town full of immigrants and shopkeepers who are just trying to get by.

A Wall Is Also a Road is a story about what happens when the alien becomes familiar–and beloved. Gardenpath expected to finish their research, present their discovery, and take their place among the decorated scholars of the floating cities. But when they look at their wild new friend Murtis’s sensor bulb, attached to a bizarre electro-chemical control system, they begin to realize there’s more to life than academic achievement. They're not sure what it is, but they're going to use science to find out.

Reviews

Praise for Annalee Newitz

“Breathtakingly brilliant.”—The New York Times on The Future of Another Timeline

"A revolution is happening in speculative fiction, and Annalee Newitz is leading the vanguard." -- Wil Wheaton, actor on Star Trek and Big Bang Theory

“Newitz always sees to the heart of complex systems and breaks them down with poetic ferocity.”—N. K. Jemisin, author of the Broken Earth trilogy and The City We Became

"This is a story—about building community despite adversity, fighting for your rights and individuality, and creating art that you want to see in the world—that I didn't know I needed right now. And it was so much fun to read!”—Martha Wells, author of The Murderbot Diaries and Witch King, on Automatic Noodle

"This book will make you hungry. It will also keep you warm."—Becky Chambers, author of the Monk and Robot series, on Automatic Noodle

"So engaging, you could almost miss the pyrotechnic world-building and bone-deep intelligence. Newitz continues doing some of the best work in the field."—James S. A. Corey, author of the Expanse series

"Fascinating and readable in equal measure, The Terraformers will remake your mind like its cast remakes an entire planet."—John Scalzi, author of The Collapsing Empire

"[Newitz has] gifted us a vibrant, quirky vision of endless potential earned by heroism, love and wit."—The Washington Post on The Terraformers

“An ingenious, galaxy-brain book.”—Los Angeles Times on The Terraformers

“Smart and profound on every level.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Future of Another Timeline

About the Author

Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the USA Today bestselling author of the novella Automatic Noodle, the books Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, and the novels The Terraformers (a Nebula Award finalist), The Future of Another Timeline (winner of the Sidewise Award), and Autonomous (winner of a Lambda Literary Award). As a science journalist, they are a writer for the New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Popular Science, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among others. They are also the co-host of the three-time Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.