Dear Reader…
I’m so glad you’ve decided to delve into Meridia’s story and find out what Song of All Songs is about!
I’m trying to imagine exactly what it was about the book that drew you in. Was it that mysterious cover with the ominous fire at its heart? Are you intrigued by the promise of a story about a biracial woman called to heroic adventure? Or perhaps you (like me) yearn for a story about humanity’s far future that is neither grimly dark nor naively utopian. Maybe you’re a fan of the kind of “soft science fiction” that Ursula Le Guin wrote, the kind where the world-building focuses on society and culture and human relationships more than on technology. Did you know that my reviewers have compared my writing to Le Guin’s?
Whatever your reasons for selecting Song of All Songs, you’re here now, and I hope you enjoy the adventure! Along the way, I hope you find things to identify with, things that feel familiar (even when encountered in strange forms and configurations), and things that feel unexpectedly possible, even hopeful.
I also hope that you’re a slow reader. That may sound strange. I know a lot of authors endeavor to write the proverbial “page-turner.” It’s true that Song of All Songs has been called a “thriller” and it does maintain an exciting pace as the adventure unfolds. There are unexpected twists and turns, enigmas hinted at, stunning revelations! But there are also interludes where I’ve endeavored to arrange carefully selected words in a way that can launch you into deep experience of a different and strangely beautiful world. I hope you’ll take the time to go there. The book has also been called “visceral” and I hope you find that description apt.
You may be able to guess that the author of this book is someone who believes that there is a great deal of human possibility that remains untapped. That is very true, and it is also true that nothing makes me happier than sharing my vision of human possibility with my readers!
Happy reading!
Love,
Author, Donna Dechen Birdwell
About the Author
When Donna Dechen Birdwell was about ten years old, she became obsessed with the idea that if she was thinking with her brain, she ought to be able to think how it works! She’s been trying to wrap her mind around reality (and how humans experience it) ever since. She made a career out of anthropology—that utterly boundless science of humankind and how we got here—and then sidestepped into Buddhist philosophy and then art and photography and writing stories that tend to fall somewhere in the neighborhood of speculative and/or science fiction. She’s a big fan of Ursula LeGuin and N.K. Jemisin.
In her EarthCycles series, Donna imagines a far, far future world in which pockets of survivors of a global apocalypse have evolved new ways of being human. “Not altogether new,” she says. “More like rearrangements of certain aspects of our inherent human potential.” The first volume of EarthCycles, Song of All Songs, received the 2020 silver medal from Self Publishing Review. The book introduces a mixed-race main character making her unique way through a deeply conflicted world. The second book in the series, Book of All Time, is set for release in August of 2021.
Donna’s first trilogy (Recall Chronicles) is set in a hauntingly familiar 22nd-century world in which nobody grows old, an achievement that turns out to be not nearly so utopian as one might expect. Each volume tells the story of a different character’s experience of that world, but the stories are intertwined and some of the same characters turn up in all the books.
A stand-alone contemporary fiction book, Not Knowing, explores intergenerational PTSD in the life of an archaeologist working in Belize. Donna worked as an ethnologist in Belize for many years, so there’s a lot of her heart in this one.
Before anthropology, Donna worked as a newspaper reporter, and beyond anthropology she studied Buddhist philosophy (and practice) and then became an artist and photographer. Her paintings are done in acrylics on handmade Nepali lokta paper. Her primary photographic interest is in Miksang contemplative photography.
Donna earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and previously taught at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://donnadechenbirdwell.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/donnadechen/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wideworldhome/
About the Book
Despised by her mother’s people and demeaned by her absent father’s legacy, Meridia has one friend—Damon, an eccentric photologist. When Damon shows Meridia a stone he discovered in an old photo bag purchased from a vagrant peddler, she is transfixed. There’s a woman, she says, a dancing woman. And a song. Can a rock hold a song? Can a song contain worlds? Oblivious of mounting political turmoil, the two set out to find the old peddler, to find out what he knows about the stone, the woman, and the song. But marauding zealots attack and take Damon captive, leaving Meridia alone. Desolate. Terrified. Yet determined to carry on, to pursue the stone’s extraordinary song, even as it lures her into a journey that will transform her world.
“When anthropologist Donna Dechen Birdwell turns her keen sense of how societies evolved in the past toward imagining a post-apocalyptic future, the result is a thoughtful, nuanced, intelligent thriller.” — Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of The Oppenheimer Alternative
“Song of All Songs is a beautifully written and richly realized vision of the future, informed by a deep understanding of humanity.” — Christopher Brown, Campbell and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of Tropic of Kansas and Failed State
“An immersive and visceral vision of the future. This first installment of the EarthCycles series plays out as both a wonderful adventure and a well-crafted prophecy. The economy of language in certain moments is striking, while the poetic flow in other passages makes this novel a delicious pleasure to consume. This rare blend of naked imagination, careful storytelling, poetic flair, and meticulous language is reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin at her best. Showcasing the speculative fiction of a wildly gifted author, Song of All Songs is a very special book – an enigmatic and inventive treasure, and certainly not one to be missed.”-Self-Publishing Review
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