SUBSTRATE PHANTOMS
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JESSICA REISMAN
The space station Termagenti, hub of commerce, culture, and civilization, may be haunted. Dangerous power surges, inexplicable energy manifestations, and strange accidents plague the station. Even after generations of exploring deep space, humanity has yet to encounter another race, and yet, some believe that what is troubling the station may be an alien life form.
Jhinsei and his operations team crawl throughout the station, one of many close-knit working groups that keep Termagenti operational. After an unexplained and deadly mishap takes his team from him, Jhinsei finds himself--for lack of a better word--haunted by his dead teammates. In fact, they may not be alone in taking up residence in his brain. He may have picked up a ghostan alien intelligence that is using him to flee its dying ship. As Jhinsei struggles to understand what is happening to his sanity, inquisitive and dangerous members of the station’s managing oligarchy begin to take an increasingly focused interest in him.
Haunted by his past and the increasing urgent presence of another within his mind, Jhinsei flees the station for the nearby planet Ash, where he undertakes an exploration that will redefine friend, foe, self, and other.
With Substrate Phantoms, Jessica Reisman offers an evocative and thought-provoking story of first contact, where who we are is questioned as much as who they might be.
Also available from Jessica Reisman:
The Arcana of Maps and Other Stories
- July 30, 2024 978-1-958880-23-4
- trade paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 286 pgs
- Order copies below, or buy print or ebooks of this title from these dealers. (More venues forthcoming)
The space station Termagenti, hub of commerce, culture, and civilization, may be haunted. Dangerous power surges, inexplicable energy manifestations, and strange accidents plague the station. Even after generations of exploring deep space, humanity has yet to encounter another race, and yet, some believe that what is troubling the station may be an alien life form.
Jhinsei and his operations team crawl throughout the station, one of many close-knit working groups that keep Termagenti operational. After an unexplained and deadly mishap takes his team from him, Jhinsei finds himself--for lack of a better word--haunted by his dead teammates. In fact, they may not be alone in taking up residence in his brain. He may have picked up a ghostan alien intelligence that is using him to flee its dying ship. As Jhinsei struggles to understand what is happening to his sanity, inquisitive and dangerous members of the station’s managing oligarchy begin to take an increasingly focused interest in him.
Haunted by his past and the increasing urgent presence of another within his mind, Jhinsei flees the station for the nearby planet Ash, where he undertakes an exploration that will redefine friend, foe, self, and other.
With Substrate Phantoms, Jessica Reisman offers an evocative and thought-provoking story of first contact, where who we are is questioned as much as who they might be.
Also available from Jessica Reisman:
The Arcana of Maps and Other Stories
"A deep dive into prose-poetry sci-fi and a mind-stretching mystery."
— Kirkus Reviews
"Jessica Reisman's Substrate Phantoms strikes me as a parsec-pioneering SF novel of the highest pedigree. It exists in a matrix of lucid far-future prose, to wit, fresh English with long-tomorrow noir twists. Every page discloses evolved or augmented human beings against the backdrop of a hermetically radical spacestation, Termagenti, or the dirt-rich gravity well of a partially terraformed planet called Ash. Substrate Phantoms presents immemorial human acts in variations as strange as any 21st-century reader could imagine, but always in context semotionally resonant. I think it an out-and-out breakthrough, with mystical and sociological roots trailing back to Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. Indeed, true aficionados of humane hard SF will applaud Ms. Reisman for bequeathing them this beautiful tale of a heretofore uncreated tomorrow."
— Michael Bishop, author of A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire
"A brainy beautiful space adventure that conjures wonder from the quotidian detail of everyday life, real longing for authentic community, and language as freshly vivid as the beautiful planets you once imagined--a book that lets you see nets of coruscating light in the darkness."
— Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas
"Jessica Reisman has accomplished a rare feat, melding a mind-stretching interplanetary adventure with an intimate tale of flawed human beings struggling against both tragedy and treachery. Readers who crave full-immersion science fiction will want to jump headlong into the gravity well of Substrate Phantoms--and trust it to whisk them to a world surreal yet solid, cerebral yet heartfelt . . . and terrifying yet beautiful."
— Bradley Denton, author of Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede
"Substrate Phantoms evokes the stories and characters of CJ Cherryh and the social complexity of Maureen F. McHugh, ringing insightful twenty-first-century changes on classic sf tropes and questions. It's a sharp, fun read."
— L. Timmel Duchamp, author of The Waterdancer's World
"Substrate Phantoms takes place in a world both haunted and haunting, a high-tech ghost-in-the-machine story with plenty of sharp edges. Jessica Reisman's luminous prose and intricate characterization will mesmerize, entertain and surprise you . . . right to the last page."
— A.M. Dellamonica, award-winning author of The Nature of a Pirate
"Substrate Phantoms is beautifully written and richly imagined, with themes and imagery that remind me of Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. It's a lovely book; I hope we'll see more of this universe and these characters."
— Judith Tarr, award winning author of Forgotten Suns
"It's a testament to Reisman's storytelling chops that after reading just the opening chapter, I could hardly wait to get back to the book to find out what was going on. There is a threat and a promise in that opening, and what followed did not disappoint. Reisman's world-building skills are no less impressive than her storytelling. I was immersed and invested in the characters immediately and was pulled into their story by the way the author continued to expand my view of the universe she had imagined. This is the whole package: fully-realized characters with a mystery to be solved, set in a vivid science fictional world."
— Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, co-author of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Mr. Twilight.
"This genre-expanding narrative unfolds with a distinctive writing style and voice, leaving a hauntingly memorable impression."
— BookLife Prize
— Kirkus Reviews
"Jessica Reisman's Substrate Phantoms strikes me as a parsec-pioneering SF novel of the highest pedigree. It exists in a matrix of lucid far-future prose, to wit, fresh English with long-tomorrow noir twists. Every page discloses evolved or augmented human beings against the backdrop of a hermetically radical spacestation, Termagenti, or the dirt-rich gravity well of a partially terraformed planet called Ash. Substrate Phantoms presents immemorial human acts in variations as strange as any 21st-century reader could imagine, but always in context semotionally resonant. I think it an out-and-out breakthrough, with mystical and sociological roots trailing back to Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. Indeed, true aficionados of humane hard SF will applaud Ms. Reisman for bequeathing them this beautiful tale of a heretofore uncreated tomorrow."
— Michael Bishop, author of A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire
"A brainy beautiful space adventure that conjures wonder from the quotidian detail of everyday life, real longing for authentic community, and language as freshly vivid as the beautiful planets you once imagined--a book that lets you see nets of coruscating light in the darkness."
— Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas
"Jessica Reisman has accomplished a rare feat, melding a mind-stretching interplanetary adventure with an intimate tale of flawed human beings struggling against both tragedy and treachery. Readers who crave full-immersion science fiction will want to jump headlong into the gravity well of Substrate Phantoms--and trust it to whisk them to a world surreal yet solid, cerebral yet heartfelt . . . and terrifying yet beautiful."
— Bradley Denton, author of Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede
"Substrate Phantoms evokes the stories and characters of CJ Cherryh and the social complexity of Maureen F. McHugh, ringing insightful twenty-first-century changes on classic sf tropes and questions. It's a sharp, fun read."
— L. Timmel Duchamp, author of The Waterdancer's World
"Substrate Phantoms takes place in a world both haunted and haunting, a high-tech ghost-in-the-machine story with plenty of sharp edges. Jessica Reisman's luminous prose and intricate characterization will mesmerize, entertain and surprise you . . . right to the last page."
— A.M. Dellamonica, award-winning author of The Nature of a Pirate
"Substrate Phantoms is beautifully written and richly imagined, with themes and imagery that remind me of Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. It's a lovely book; I hope we'll see more of this universe and these characters."
— Judith Tarr, award winning author of Forgotten Suns
"It's a testament to Reisman's storytelling chops that after reading just the opening chapter, I could hardly wait to get back to the book to find out what was going on. There is a threat and a promise in that opening, and what followed did not disappoint. Reisman's world-building skills are no less impressive than her storytelling. I was immersed and invested in the characters immediately and was pulled into their story by the way the author continued to expand my view of the universe she had imagined. This is the whole package: fully-realized characters with a mystery to be solved, set in a vivid science fictional world."
— Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, co-author of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Mr. Twilight.
"This genre-expanding narrative unfolds with a distinctive writing style and voice, leaving a hauntingly memorable impression."
— BookLife Prize
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR