In a ruined world, where wealthy humans push health and longevity to extremes and surround themselves with a shining metal wall, privilege and security is predicated on the services of cloned Neandertals, and the exploitation of women in the shanty towns and wastelands beyond the fortress city.
This is the frightening yet moving story of orphaned Alida and her younger sister Graycie, and their struggle for survival in the Demi-Settlements outside the wall. When the sisters are forced to enter the City by very different means they risk being separated forever.
Cloned Neandertal officer, Shuqba is exiled to a security outpost in the Demi-Settlements when she fails to adhere to the impossible standards set for her species within the City. Will she offer a lifeline to Alida or betray her?
The Shining Wall is at once a frightening parable of our unjust world of haves and have-nots, a richly imagined yet thrilling story of technological control and the fight for survival, and a paean to female friendship and power.
Praise for The Shining Wall -
"Gripping from the word GO. A fearlessly feminist imagining of the entire fractured human genus in a future none of us should ever have to face." - Transit Lounge.
"The Shining Wall enshrines familiar relationships even as it destroys genre tropes about a woman’s role in a ruined world. Leave it to a new voice like this to set the post-apocalyptic construction on its ear. A triumph of realistic science fiction." - Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife.
About The Author
When Melissa Ferguson was a kid she wanted to be an author because she loved reading. When she was a preteen she wanted to be a choreographer because she loved dancing, or a zoologist because she loved animals.
When she was a teen she wanted to be dietitian because she loved food. She ended up obtaining qualifications in biology and human nutrition and found herself working with things she didn’t love, like blood, faeces, placentas, cancer cells and flesh-eating bacteria (okay, maybe she loves blood a little bit).
She didn’t return to her love of writing until she was in her thirties and her debut science fiction novel, The Shining Wall was published in 2019. She still loves food and animals but doesn’t get to dance as much as she’d like to. Follow Melissa on Twitter @melissajferg.
