Full brass fanfare for legendary SFF author and forerunner Melissa Scott, whose riveting mythic space opera Finders lifts off today!
Finders is the first in a projected trilogy (Firstborn, Lastborn). Set in a fully imagined universe with vividly delineated protagonists, the novel is a seamless fusion of adventure, myth, and science so advanced as to have become magic—a bold, original re-imagining of the tales of Prometheus, Pandora, and the Titans. Those who read The Other Half of the Sky may recall meeting the protagonists in “Finders” and two powerful presences mentioned in Finders are shown in “Firstborn, Lastborn”, included in To Shape the Dark. The premise of Finders:
Cassilde Sam is a barely solvent salvage operator, hunting for relics in the ruins left by the mysterious Ancestors—particularly the color-coded Elements that power most of humanity’s current technology, including the ability to navigate through hyperspace. Cassilde is also steadily fading under the onslaught of Lightman’s, an incurable, inevitably fatal disease. She needs one last find big enough to leave a legacy for her partner and fellow salvor Dai Winter.
When their lover and former colleague Summerlad Ashe reappears, offering them a chance to salvage part of an orbiting palace that he claims contains potentially immense riches, Cassilde is desperate enough to take the gamble, even though Ashe had left them both to fight on the opposite side of the interplanetary war that only ended seven years ago. The find is everything Ashe promised. But when pirates attack the claim, Cassilde receives the rarest of the Ancestors’ Gifts: a change to her biochemistry that confers near-instant healing and seems to promise immortality.
But the change also drags her into an underworld where Gifts are traded in blood, and powerful Gifts bring equally powerful enemies. Hunted for her Gift and determined to find Gifts for her lovers, Cassilde discovers that an old enemy is searching for the greatest of the Ancestral artifacts: the power that the Ancestors created and were able to barely contain after it almost destroyed them, plunging humanity into the first Long Dark. Haunted by dream-visions of this power whispering its own version of what happened, Cassilde must find it first, before her enemy frees it to destroy her own civilization
Melissa Scott was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, studied history at Harvard, and published her first novel while earning her PhD from Brandeis in comparative history. She has published more than thirty original novels and a handful of short stories, most with queer themes and characters, as well as authorized tie-in novels for Star Trek, Stargate, and Star Wars Rebels. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, multiple Lambda Literary and Spectrum Awards, was shortlisted for the Tiptree Award and many of her short stories have been anthologized in Year’s Best. The haunting, evocative cover is by Eleni Tsami whose stunning work has graced previous Candlemark efforts.
Finders received terrific reviews from several SFF venues and personalities. Excerpts:
Space travel and faster-than-light drives blend with world mythology…//…a fun story with convincing worldbuilding and a delightful triad romance at its heart. — Publishers Weekly
Space Opera with a fine, wide sweep of time behind it, intriguing “Clarkean” magical science, and an engaging, edgy threesome of central characters. Fun to read, and best of all, the promise of more to come. — Gwyneth Jones, author of the Aleutian trilogy, winner of the World Fantasy, Clarke, Dick, and Tiptree awards
An action-packed space adventure with so much heart. // This thought-provoking, crunchy science fiction novel comes with deep conversations, technological wonders… — Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the Creature Court trilogy, winner of multiple Ditmar and WSFA Small Press awards
Scott’s science fiction has always been remarkable for its world-building and Finders is no exception. Once you read this thrilling new science fiction saga with its unforgettable characters, you’ll be wanting more. — Catherine Lundoff, award-winng SFF author and publisher, Queen of Swords press (here’s Catherine’s interview with Melissa about the Finders backstory)
Finders is available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo – and of course on our website, where buying the lovingly prepared trade paperback also brings along the full digital bundle (PDF, Epub and Mobi) . All C&G ebooks are DRM-free. As a reminder, it may take a few days post-launch for the print version to appear on Amazon and get linked to its digital counterpart (it’s already active at B&N). For those who buy the print version, the ornaments are an Easter egg that I’ll discuss in a separate post. If you figure it out, send word and we’ll celebrate together!
Come explore Finders with us; travel through engineered spacetime tunnels, investigate dangerous ancestral technology, and face very real ghosts of the past!
