The Jewel and Her Lapidary

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2016 Nebula Award finalist for Best Novelette

From Fran Wilde, the Andre Norton and Compton Crook Award-winning author of Updraft.

The kingdom in the Valley has long sheltered under the protection of its Jewels and Lapidaries, the people bound to singing gemstones with the power to reshape hills, move rivers, and warp minds. That power has kept the peace and tranquility, and the kingdom has flourished.

Jewel Lin and her Lapidary Sima may be the last to enjoy that peace.

The Jeweled Court has been betrayed. As screaming raiders sweep down from the mountains, and Lapidary servants shatter under the pressure, the last princess of the Valley will have to summon up a strength she’s never known. If she can assume her royal dignity, and if Sima can master the most dangerous gemstone in the land, they may be able to survive.

“The central fantastical idea is pretty cool… nicely written… I suspect the world it’s set in might yield more fine stories.” – Locus

Reviews

“The Jewel and Her Lapidary is a splendid tale of courage and transformation in a world as exquisite as Wilde’s prose. You will be utterly entranced.”

—Ken Liu, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award winner

“I suspect the world it’s set in might yield more fine stories.”

—Locus

“Extraordinary world-building and cascading levels of intrigue make Wilde’s debut fantasy novel soar.”

—Publishers Weekly on Updraft

“A fun adventure, one that’s beautifully written.”

—io9

“The Jewel and Her Lapidary is a sharp, glittering novella about friendship, family, loyalty, and mental instability. The heart of the story is their friendship for and loyalty to each other – even if the price of that loyalty is sacrifice and pain.”

—Locus

About the Author

Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, three Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook Award-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula award-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years' best anthologies.

Fran teaches for the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Tor.com. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and at franwilde.net.

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