City of All Seasons - Paperback

by Oliver K. Langmead (Author), Aliya Whiteley (Author)

A vibrant and emotional science fantasy about cousins trapped in mirrored worlds - the resplendent and verdant summer city and the ice-carved wastes of the winter city. For fans of Every Heart a Doorway and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Nominated for the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award
"A beautifully strange and unique fable." The Guardian's Best SF of 2024 on Aliya Whiteley
"A unique and memorable work." The Guardian's Best SF of 2024 on Oliver K. Langmead
"An elegantly told meditation on how we can't leave ourselves behind." Esquire's 30 best SF Books of 2024 on Oliver K. Langmead

Welcome to Jamie Pike's Fairharbour - a city stuck in perpetual winter, its windows and doorways bricked shut to keep out the freezing cold, its residents striving to survive in the arctic conditions.

Welcome to Esther Pike's Fairharbour - a city stuck in constant summer, its walls crumbling in the heat, its oppressive sunlight a relentless presence.

Winter and Summer alike, have both fallen under the yoke of oppressive powers, that have taken control after the cataclysm.

But both Fairharbours were once a single, united city. And in certain places, at certain times, one side can catch a glimpse of the other. As Jamie and Esther find a way to communicate across the divide, they set out to solve the mystery of what split their city in two, and what, if anything, might repair their fractured worlds.

Author Biography

Oliver K. Langmead writes speculative fiction. His new verse-novel, Calypso, is published by Titan Books in 2024. His novel, Glitterati, was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award, and named one of New Scientist's best Science Fiction books of 2022. His previous books include Birds of Paradise, Metronome, and the verse-novel Dark Star, which was named one of the Guardian's best books of 2015. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster, and in late 2018 he was the writer in residence at the European Space Agency's Astronaut Centre in Cologne.

Aliya Whiteley's is the author of The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, Skein Island, From the Neck Up, The Arrival of Missives and more. Her novels and novellas have been shortlisted for multiple awards including the Arthur C Clarke award, British Fantasy award, British Science Fiction award and a Shirley Jackson award. Her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Static, Strange Horizons, The Dark, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and The Guardian, as well as in anthologies such as Unsung Stories' This Dreaming Isle and 2084 and Lonely Planet's Better than Fiction. She also writes a regular non-fiction column for Interzone magazine.