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It is with great pleasure that IFWG can announce the acquisition of a science-fiction novel, Twilight Ziggurats by A. Bristow-Smith.

“We are always excited when a science-fiction piece crosses our desk,” said Gerry Huntman, Managing Director, “but doubly so when it is a work of high quality. It is certainly a pleasure the acquire this strong sci-fi novel and we believe it will spark the attention and admiration of fans of this genre.”

A has a confusing international background, a PhD in literature from the University of York UK, and a voracious appetite for knowledge of questionable utility. 

A has been a freelancer, a public education activist with Greenpeace and ActionAid, and now does software engineering. 

A’s writing focuses on non-human minds, alternative societal structures, and authentic encounters with the unknown and unknowable, with the aim of ‘speculative realism’. They have had reviews published in Strange Horizons and The Journal of American Studies.

For three millennia, the Founder’s Plan has brought order, stability, and peace to the planet Dawn: fuelled by the engines of the Word and maintained by the sexless Apprentices. Rāīd-Kūtel is an ideal Apprentice: dutiful, diligent, obedient. Insignificant. That is, until one of the ancient, inhuman Lawspeakers returns to Dawn. And Rāīd-Kūtel is chosen as its guide.

Rāīd-Kūtel will do anything to prove heirself to heir superiors and return to heir orderly existence, yet hey soon learns that there is more at stake than heir peace of mind. The Lawspeaker is hunting something, and its search will lay bare the faultlines in the foundations of the world.

For in the depths of Dawn’s world-ringing City, a storm is brewing. Survivors of an unknown terror cower in the dark; a nameless Apprentice uses forbidden tools to cure an incurable ill; and a veteran Apprentice is sent to scour all trace of things that were not meant to be. And as the Founder’s Plan begins to crumble under the weight of history—of secrets, truths, and long-forgotten lies—something vast is waiting for its chance to slither through the cracks.

Twilight Ziggurats will be globally released in the fourth quarter of 2207.