✨👁️✨ IN THE WATCHFUL CITY

Published on August 31, 2021

Anima closes ær eyes and sees the world.

Cut off from the rest of the world by choice, the city of Ora relies on heavy surveillance of its people and surroundings to maintain order. Anima is one of the extrasensory humans tasked with running the city. Even if it means never leaving the Hub, Anima is content with ær job, as it offers ær a direct connection to the Gleaming, a powerful network that spans the globe and connects all things. Then, a mysterious figure named Vessel manages to enter Ora without going through one of the border gates. Se offers Anima the chance to look at ser cabinet of curiosities from around the world in exchange for a memento of ær own. Instead of turning ser in to the authorities, Anima, who has never seen the world outside Ora, accepts Vessel’s offer. But as æ learns the story behind each item, Anima realizes that the rest of the world isn’t like Ora and begins to doubt ær role in enforcing the city’s rules. As events collide, Anima is left with one question that destabilizes everything æ knows: What good is a city if it can’t protect its people?

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Cover art for IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by Kuri Huang

Cover for IN THE WATCHFUL CITY AUDIOBOOK art by Anni Roenkae — Art by Anni Roenkae / Edited by Jonathan Strahan / Audio mastered by Simplify Productions
**ISBN:** 9798823419710 (retail) / 9798823419727 (library)

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Listen to In the Watchful City as read by the author. You can purchase a DRM-free audiobook direct from S. Qiouyi Lu. Thanks for shopping indie!

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What Readers Are Saying

Blurbs

A wild, wonderful, dizzying ride I didn’t want to end. The worldbuilding is as intricate and intoxicating as the characters are wrenchingly alive. In the Watchful City trumpets the arrival of a major new talent.

Sam J. Miller Nebula Award-winning author of Blackfish City and The Art of Starving

Stories within stories, possibilities within impossibilities: In the Watchful City is half-tapestry, half-menagerie, adding up to an intricate, transcendent fantasy.

Chuck Wendig NYT Bestselling author of Wanderers, Blackbird, and Zer0es

An intricately nested cyberpunk story that perfectly represents the best of the genre while exploring entirely new territory—of tradition, power, rebellion, connection, and the aching responsibility that accompanies omniscience or at least omnipresence. Every character will leave their individual mark on your heart.

Premee Mohamed Award-winning author of Beneath the Rising

In the Watchful City is piercing and precise, threading grief and joy through your heart as it examines the ties that bind people to one another. Its lyrical prose and memorable characters echo long after the last page is turned.

Andrea G. Stewart Author of The Bone Shard Daughter

[A] hallucinatory, entrancing tale the likes of which readers have not seen before[.]

Jonathan Strahan Editor, Tordotcom Publishing

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Frequently Asked Questions

What’s up with “æ,” “se,” and “e”?

I use neopronouns, or invented, gender-neutral third-person pronouns, throughout In the Watchful City. I am a nonbinary person who uses neopronouns myself, and it was frustrating to not have a lengthy text that uses my own pronouns. So I wrote the book I wanted to see in the world. You can refer to my pronunciation guide for how to say the neopronouns out loud.

Are there any trigger warnings for In the Watchful City?

The novella includes a depiction of a completed suicide. For resources and support on coping with suicide or suicidal ideation, please refer to this international list of suicide hotlines. Additionally, some imagery may be triggering for self-harm survivors, specifically in the stories “A Death Made Manifold” and “As Dark As Hunger.”

Extras

Royalty Dashboard

The print editions (paperback and ebook) of In the Watchful City are published traditionally with Tordotcom Publishing, a division of Macmillan. The audiobook, however, is self-published. As a public service, I have compiled and released royalty data for all editions of the book, available free for anyone to browse.

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Artwork by S. Qiouyi Lu

Playlist

This Spotify playlist contains the music I was listening to while drafting In the Watchful City. The lyrics aren’t always relevant, but I listen mostly for vibe and atmosphere.

About the Author

S. Qiouyi Lu writes, translates, and edits between two coasts of the Pacific. Ær debut biocyberpunk novella In the Watchful City is out now from Tordotcom Publishing, and ær other work has appeared in several award-winning venues. You can find out more about S. at ær website s.qiouyi.lu or on Twitter @sqiouyilu.