Inclination

By William Shunn

Nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards

“Outstanding.... It’s a fascinating future, and Jude’s personal story is involving.” —Rich Horton, Locus Magazine

Jude Plane is not your typical teenage boy, even among the other kids in his cloistered religious enclave. He belongs to the Machinist Guild, a group that forbids the use of any technology more advanced than a doorknob. But advanced technology can be hard to avoid when you live in an overlooked corner of Netherview Station—a giant wheel in space, twelve light-years from earth.

Jude wants to live an obedient life, whatever that means, but his resolve is put to the test when his abusive father sends him to work outside the enclave, unloading freight at the station’s hub. There Jude will make friends stranger than any he’s ever known, and will find himself confronted by choices he never imagined. But will he solve the biggest mystery of all—the mystery of who he is?

“An intelligent, well-crafted piece.... Shunn’s elaborate details about the religious rules and philosophies of this group form thought-provoking parallels with some of today’s funda­men­talist religious groups. It would not surprise me if this tale eventually finds a place in someone’s year’s best science fiction anthology.”—Jeff Cates, Tangent

“A well-considered examination of a basic SF concern: the clash of differing technological levels, and how this (especially now) can cause the lower-tech culture to retreat into funda­men­talism.... Shunn gets a lot of good satirical digs in, and a contemporary dilemma is penetratingly illuminated.” —Nick Gevers, Locus Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sinister Regard
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781941928653

William Shunn

William Shunn is the author of the acclaimed 2015 memoir The Accidental Terrorist: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. Since his first publication in 1993, his short fiction has appeared in Salon, Storyteller, Bloodstone Review, Newtown Literary, Asimov's Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Realms of Fantasy, Electric Velocipede, and various anthologies and year's-best collections. His work has been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Association for Mormon Letters Award. His chapbook An Alternate History of the 21st Century appeared from Spilt Milk Press in 2007, and his novella Cast a Cold Eye, written with Derryl Murphy, came out from PS Publishing in 2009. He lives and writes in New York City.

Book preview

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