A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Last updated
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy book cover.webp
Author Becky Chambers
SeriesMonk & Robot
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Tor.com
Publication date
July 12, 2022
ISBN 978-1-250-23623-4
Preceded by A Psalm for the Wild-Built  

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a 2022 solarpunk novella written by Becky Chambers and published by Tor.com on July 12 2022. [1] It is the second book in the Monk & Robot series, preceded by A Psalm for the Wild-Built , which was released on July 13, 2021. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy won the 2023 Locus Award for Best Novella.

Contents

Background

In 2018, for its Tor.com Publishing imprint, Tor Books commissioned Becky Chambers to write a two-book novella series within the emerging solarpunk genre. [2] The first novel in the series, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, was released in 2021 and won the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novella. [3] [4]

Synopsis

After befriending each other in A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Dex the tea monk and Splendid Speckled Mosscap the robot begin a road trip across the moon called Panga. They travel to various human populations asking "What do people need?” Along the way, they meet a range of different characters, including Dex’s family, who all offer different answers to the question. By the end of the book, Dex and Mosscap both realise that they don't know what they need but they want to work out the answer to that question together.

Reception

In 2022, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella. [5] It went on to win the 2023 Locus Award for Best Novella. [6]

It was also the bestseller within the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. [7]

The Washington Post stated that it was one of the best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2022. [8] The Big Issue praised the novel, stating that 'it takes great skill to write deeply about such seemingly ordinary things and fill them with wide-eyed wonder.' [9] Writer Maya Gittelman described the book as 'a bit cheekier than Psalm, but no less of a meditative warm hug.' [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Stross</span> British author

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine Computer Shopper and was responsible for its monthly Linux column. He stopped writing for the magazine to devote more time to novels. However, he continues to publish freelance articles on the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Wells</span> American speculative fiction writer (born 1964)

Martha Wells is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series The Murderbot Diaries. She is also known for her fantasy series Ile-Rien and The Books of the Raksura. Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherynne M. Valente</span> American writer

Catherynne M. Valente is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Andre Norton, and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, the anthologies Salon Fantastique and Paper Cities, along with numerous "Year's Best" volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the International Journal of the Humanities as well as in numerous essay collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aliette de Bodard</span> French-American speculative fiction writer

Aliette de Bodard is a French-American speculative fiction writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Liu</span> Chinese-American writer

Ken Liu is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction, which has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.

This is a list of the published works of Aliette de Bodard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amal El-Mohtar</span> Canadian poet and writer (born 1984)

Amal El-Mohtar is a Canadian poet and writer of speculative fiction. She has published short fiction, poetry, essays and reviews, and has edited the fantastic poetry quarterly magazine Goblin Fruit since 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Becky Chambers</span> American science-fiction writer

Becky Chambers is an American science fiction writer. She is the author of the Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series as well as novellas including To Be Taught, if Fortunate (2019) and the Monk & Robot series, which begins with the Hugo Award-winning A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021). She is known for her imaginative world-building and character-driven stories.

Neon Yang, formerly JY Yang, is a Singaporean writer of English-language speculative fiction best known for the Tensorate series of novellas published by Tor.com, which have been finalists for the Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, Lambda Literary Award, British Fantasy Award, and Kitschie Award. The first novella in the series, The Black Tides of Heaven, was named one of the "100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time" by Time magazine. Their debut novel, The Genesis of Misery, the first book in The Nullvoid Chronicles, was published in 2022 by Tor Books, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, received a nomination for the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction, and was a Finalist for the 2023 Locus Award for Best First Novel and 2023 Compton Crook Award.

Fonda Lee is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Time magazine. The Green Bone Saga was also included on NPR's list, "50 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade".

<i>Every Heart a Doorway</i> 2016 novella by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway is a fantasy novella by American writer Seanan McGuire, the first in the Wayward Children series. It was first published in hardcover and ebook editions by Tor.com in April 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solarpunk</span> Literary and artistic movement

Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial enthusiasm for creating such a future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Gailey</span> American author

Sarah Gailey is an American author. Their alternate history novella River of Teeth was a finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella, and the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novella. In 2018, they also won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.

Alix E. Harrow is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, and in 2019 she won a Hugo Award for her story "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies". She has published under the name Alix Heintzman.

<i>This Is How You Lose the Time War</i> 2019 novella by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a 2019 science fiction epistolary novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It was first published by Simon & Schuster. It won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction, the Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2019, and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

Dexter Gabriel, better known by his pen name Phenderson Djèlí Clark, is an American speculative fiction writer and historian, who is an assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Connecticut. He uses a pen name to differentiate his literary work from his academic work, and has also published under the name A. Phenderson Clark. This pen name, "Djèlí", makes reference to the griots – traditional Western African storytellers, historians and poets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamsyn Muir</span> New Zealand writer (born 1985)

Tamsyn Muir is a New Zealand fantasy, science fiction, and horror author. Muir won the 2020 Locus Award for her first novel, Gideon the Ninth, and has been nominated for several other awards as well.

S. B. Divya is the pen name of Divya Srinivasan Breed, who writes speculative fiction. She is also an engineer and was the co-editor for Escape Pod, along with Mur Lafferty, through April 8, 2022.

<i>Fireheart Tiger</i> Novella by Aliette de Bodard

Fireheart Tiger is a 2021 fantasy novella by Aliette de Bodard.

<i>A Psalm for the Wild-Built</i> 2021 novella by Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a 2021 solarpunk novella written by American author Becky Chambers, published by Tor.com on July 13, 2021. It is the first book in the Monk & Robot duology, followed by A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, which was released on July 12, 2022. It won the Hugo Award in 2022.

References

  1. Tor.com (2021-09-13). "Tea and Sympathy (and Robots): Revealing Becky Chambers' A Prayer for the Crown-Shy". Tor.com. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  2. Harris, Lee (2018-07-18). "Announcing a Pair of Solarpunk Novellas from Becky Chambers". Tor.com. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  3. "2022 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  4. Tor.com (2020-04-16). "Introducing Monk & Robot, a New Series by Becky Chambers". Tor.com. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  5. "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy". The Nebula Awards. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  6. locusmag (2023-06-25). "2023 Locus Awards Winners". Locus Online. Retrieved 2023-09-13.
  7. staff, Seattle Times (2022-07-24). "'A Prayer for the Crown-Shy' is the top local fiction bestseller". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  8. "The 9 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2022". Washington Post. 2022-11-17. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  9. Johnstone, Doug (2022-09-15). "A Prayer For the Crown-Shy review: 'Hopepunk' novel imagines a positive future for humanity". The Big Issue. Retrieved 2023-09-12.
  10. Gittelman, Maya (2022-07-13). "Book Review: Becky Chambers' A Prayer for the Crown-Shy". Tor.com. Retrieved 2023-09-12.