Reluctant Voyagers

The Silent City

In the Mothers' Land

Tyranael Series

Reine de Mémoire Series

Others

Reluctant Voyagers

In Catherine Rhymer's Montréal, the familiar streets are changing; history is unpredictable, and irrational events are becoming commonplace. In search of the truth about her world, Catherine voyages further and further north, through hail and snow and herds of pseudo-moose to a confrontation with the originators of her reality.

In Reluctant Voyagers, Élisabeth Vonarburg, winner of the Aurora, Prix Boréal and Philip K. Dick Awards, has created a powerful speculative novel about parents, children, time, memory and love.

Tesseract Books, 1995

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The Silent City

Built as a refuge from a war-ravaged world outside, THE SILENT CITY is the final stronghold of science and knowledge. A self-perpetuating technology maintains the City in which only a handful of humans survive, despite rejuvenation treatments and cybernetics. Into this doomed world Elisa is born, child of her father's obsession with creating a human form with the ability to self-heal. Elisa devotes herself to her father's cause...until she begins to see the truth about the City and its occupants. Rebelling against her father/lover, Elisa discovers her unique gift for changing herself and the world around her. But time is running out. The human race is threatened by a virus that prevents the conception of male babies -- and women bear the blame. Elisa must determine her future...and the future of humanity.

(Original French Edition: Le Silence de la Cité(novel), Denoël, Présence du Futur, Paris, 1981. Out of print. Reedit. Le Silence de la Cité, Beauport, Alire, 1998. Transl. The Silent City, 1988, Press Porcépic, Victoria, Toronto ; The Women's Press, Londres, 1990; Bantam Spectra Special, New York, 1992; Die Schweigende Stadt, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Allemagne, 1997)

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In the Mothers' Land/The Maërlande Chronicles

In a novel of epic proportions, Elisabeth Vonarburg envisions a world of the far future that has survived the Decline where the few survivors are forced to create a new society. Abandoning the models of patriarchy and matriarchy, they are faced with establishing new gender roles, social rules and mythologies.

Lisbei is a young "thinker" whose curiosity leads her to discover a major historical artifact from before the Decline that challenges the mythology of the new order and its religion. In alliance with the enigmatic Kelys, Lisbei sets out to confront the new establishment and force it to change; a task that will take her whole life.

1993 - Prix du Salon du livre Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

1993 - Prix Boréal

1993 - Grand Prix de la science-fiction et du fantastique québécois

1993 - Prix Aurora

1993 - Special Philip K. Dick Award

Chroniques du Pays des Mères, coll. Littérature d'Amérique, Québec/Amérique, Montréal, 1992 ; reed. same title, Beauport, Alire, 1999. Transl. Jane Brierley In the Mothers' Land, Bantam Spectra Special, New-York, 1992 ; a.k.a The Maerlande Chronicles, Beach Holme/Tesseracts Books, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 1993.

Read an excerpt (in English) here.

Other Novels

• Histoire de la Princesse et du Dragon, YA Fantasy novella, Québec-Amérique, Montréal, collection Jeunesse, 1990.
• Les Contes de la Chatte Rouge, YA Fantasy novel, idem, Collection Jeunesse, Québec/Amérique, 1993.
• Contes & Légendes de Tyranaël, YA SF & Fantasy novel, idem.
• Chanson pour une sirène, novella, with Yves Meynard, Vents d'Ouest, Hull, Québec, Canada, 1995.

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Updated Sunday November 16 2008

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