We Lived on the Horizon: A Novel

by Erika Swyler Narrated by Shiromi Arserio

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

This is a razor-sharp, speculative take on the future of artificial intelligence, a study of extreme altruism and hope for humanity at the end of the world.

The acclaimed author of the “dazzling” (Sara Gruen, #1 New York Times bestselling author) The Book of Speculation returns with an engrossing new novel about a bio-prosthetic surgeon and her personal AI as they are drawn into a revolution.

The city of Bulwark is aptly named: a walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind's last stronghold, called the Sainted.

Saint Enita Malovis, long accustomed to luxury, feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. The lone practitioner of her art, Enita is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark's hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order.

A complex, imaginative, and unforgettable novel, We Lived on the Horizon grapples with concepts as varied as the human desire for utopia, body horror, and what the future holds for humanity and machine alike.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"This unique and thought-provoking novel [is a] gripping combination of mystery, romance, and speculative fiction that has plenty of connections to and implications for our present-day lives." -Marion Winik, Oprah Daily

"A haunting, suspenseful, and nuanced look at the future we may already be barreling toward."—Esquire

"An engrossing character-driven story. . . a moving sci-fi mystery that will stay with readers." —Library Journal

"Brilliant dystopian novel...Swyler’s elegant, polyphonic narrative juggles many themes, foremost among them human-robot convergence, through ever-shifting perspectives...This is a powerhouse." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Swyler achieves a seemingly impossible amount of sophisticated worldbuilding using an economy of vibrant, graceful prose. The story transports and transforms, alchemizing a combination of mystery, romance, and science fiction into an impactful exploration of the importance of connection, the evolutionary nature of identity, and the inevitability of revolution. Affecting relationships and a sinuous, kaleidoscopic third-person narrative further define and develop the exquisitely rendered characters. Singularly stunning and stunningly singular." —Kirkus, starred review

"Erika Swyler's We Lived on the Horizon is a brilliant, nuanced book that is unafraid to wrangle with big ideas—or to remind the reader that even the biggest ideas also affect ordinary lives. It asks us to read beyond the easy answers and dwell in complexity. This novel is exactly the sort of thing that I want science fiction to aspire to. I highly recommend it to fans of Station Eleven or Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life." —Kat Howard, Alex Award-winning author of An Unkindness of Magicians

“Erika Swyler’s We Lived on the Horizon delivers everything I crave from great science fiction: a pulse-quickening plot, an endless stream of imaginative wonders, and the kind of moral clarity that brings to mind the grand ethical visions of writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks. This is an unforgettable novel of ideas, keen to the complex interplays between love and sacrifice, complicity and community.” —Matt Bell, author of Appleseed

"Kaleidoscopic and incisive in its themes, We Lived on the Horizon detonates the imperfect symbiosis between A.I. and what it means to be human. From class warfare and systems of oppression to reflections on gender and inherited privilege, Swyler burrows through the walls of genres to critique civilization’s cycles of unrest and the costs of our survival. My favorite kind of novel—philosophical, timely, and brimming with intrigue and speculative flair. I couldn’t put it down." —Sequoia Nagamatsu, bestselling author of How High We Go in the Dark



Praise for Light from Other Stars

“As smart and ambitious as its heroine, Light from Other Stars is an absorbing, propulsive story of exploration and loss.” —J. Ryan Stradal, author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest

“A masterful story that hops through time to tell a tale of love and ambition, grief and resilience . . . It is full of joy and wonder, a reminder to never stop looking up into the stars and the infinite spaces in between them.” —Nylon

“Keenly wrought characters and evocative prose . . . [a] heart-wrenching, awe-inspiring conclusion. Grand in scope and graceful in execution . . . profound.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Swyler's new novel, Light From Other Stars, bends genres as it explores how the past intrudes on the present . . . Although Light From Other Stars includes plenty of science fiction elements, it's also a coming-of-age story . . . Juggling dual timelines, wonderful mid-1980s period details and a large cast of secondary characters, Swyler has set herself an ambitious task. But the novel is well-paced, with a satisfying twist near the end” —BookPage, starred review

“[Swyler] offers a moving, often heartrending story with lyrical grace. . . Fans of the film Interstellar, Jeff VanderMeer's “Southern Reach” trilogy, and character-driven drama will have a new favorite. Simply gorgeous.” —Library Journal, starred review

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-09-28
A murder reveals the faults in an allegedly optimized far-future society.

Bulwark is a walled city in the desert, built centuries ago by survivors of an apocalypse. Early residents sacrificed greatly to make the settlement habitable, and in recognition, they were venerated as Saints—a heritable title. Saints were also exorbitantly compensated in “life hours,” the continuing basis for Bulwark’s economy, which values goods and services according to the time and effort necessary for production. Life-hour totals are now tracked by Parallax, Bulwark’s Avataristic AI, whose primary purpose is to “ensure a basic quality and value of life, that everyone is cared for and no one needlessly suffers.” At present, however, Saints’ descendants are using their ancestors’ unused life-hour balances to live isolated lives of luxury, while everyone else toils tirelessly just to fall further behind. Sexagenarian bioprosthetist Saint Enita Malovis is only peripherally aware of Bulwark’s growing societal inequity thanks to her preoccupation with creating a body for Nix, the AI who runs her household and assists with her work. Then, someone kills one of her peers, Saint Lucius Ohno. Nix’s queries to Parallax for information about the crime return “a glut of junk code,” and Nix also starts noticing unsettling voids in Bulwark’s data grid. Enita’s on-again, off-again partner, historian Saint Helen Vinter, believes everything that’s happening is connected. She’s not sure how or to what end, but feels certain that neither she nor Enita is safe. Swyler achieves a seemingly impossible amount of sophisticated worldbuilding using an economy of vibrant, graceful prose. The story transports and transforms, alchemizing a combination of mystery, romance, and science fiction into an impactful exploration of the importance of connection, the evolutionary nature of identity, and the inevitability of revolution. Affecting relationships and a sinuous, kaleidoscopic third-person narrative further define and develop the exquisitely rendered characters.

Singularly stunning and stunningly singular.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192084014
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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