It's my great pleasure to announce the release of Vonda N. McIntyre's final novel, The Curve of the World, from Aqueduct Press. It's available now from Aqueduct in both print and e-book editions. You can purchase it at https://www.aqueductpress.com
Publishing work posthumously, work that the author worked on until shortly before her death, is exciting but challenging, as I note in my foreword to the novel (included in the material below). Vonda bequeathed the rights to the novel to Clarion West, which has worked closely with Aqueduct to bring Vonda's novel into the world, particularly through the care and diligence of Nisi Shawl, who served in locus auctorae. Clarion West will be hosting a virtual launch of Curve of the World at 11 a.m. PDT on Saturday, May 16, featuring readings from the novel as well as discussion by Nisi Shawl, Debbie Notkin, and me about the novel and our collaborative editorial process. You can RSVP for the Zoom link here: https://www.clarionwest.org/event/the-curve-of-the-world-virtual-launch-event/.
Here is our description of the book:
This world is round. Loving sailors court its waves, bathe in sea currents happily sharing secrets with them, waters telling them where to go and how best to navigate their way. With persistence as gentle and stubborn as worn stones, multiple award winner Vonda N. McIntyre shows us versions of everyday Minoan activities based on common sense and historical research, then flings us outward from that safe harbor into the wildest of adventures. Monsters, volcanoes, pirates, mummy kings--all these dangers must be passed as ambassador and former bull-dancer Iakinthu travels thousands of miles on a mission to return her foster son to his Pacific coast home.
Vonda treats the whole enterprise of bringing her last novel to life with the calm assurance of a favorite aunt taking you shopping in the best sex toy store ever. Sensory delights abound, from the soothing oil massaged into bathers’ skins to the cool mountain breezes buoying up ship-burdened balloons. The most audacious realities rise and ebb beneath her steady yet unobtrusive attention. We readers of The Curve of the World are truly fortunate to have such an elegant inevitability of a story so beautifully unfolded here before us.
You can read a sample from the book here: https://www.aqueductpress.com/books/samples/978-1-61976-280-0.pdf
Advance Praise
The Curve of the World is Vonda McIntyre's last gift to us, and
it is magnificent. In this alternate history of the ancient world, where
Minoans build a globe-spanning trading community, Vonda has taken up
the challenge of her good friend Ursula Le Guin and become a dreamer of a
wider reality, creating a glorious vision of a working world. The Curve
of the World is the sum and summit of all Vonda McIntyre was as a
writer and as a human being."
—Nicola Griffith, author of Ammonite and Hild
“Vonda takes us from the known world, a world with known dangers and
known comforts, into the unknown, the wild but civilized West. As she
herself looked ahead to the journey from life into death, she opens to
us a world filled with unrealized possibilities. This is a marvelous
book of the civilizations that could have been.”
—Eileen Gunn, author
of Stable Strategies for Middle Management
and Questionable Practices
“The Curve of the World is full of daring, and rich and rare invention,
but feeling true, as far as can be known, to the mysterious, apparently/
probably women-centered, ancient Minoan culture. I loved the giving of
beautiful gifts, between chance voyagers meeting on the ocean. So much
better than mere trade. A wonderful book.”
—Gwyneth Jones, author of Life and Bold as Love
“A vivid, luminous novel. As Minoan traders travel the ancient world,
McIntyre brings to richly imagined life six distinctive cultures of
antiquity, all touched with magic. The characters are so real that I
could see, feel, even smell them, and I passionately wanted each to
succeed at their various quests. The Curve Of The World is a
wonderful capstone to a storied career.”
—Nancy Kress, author of Observer
“I loved this book! It’s a glorious adventure with a heart as big as the
world! Iakinthu Gephyra is a diplomat, trader, explorer, and the ‘bridge
between people’ who strives to understand and accept cultures that are
not her own. To find the family of her adopted child, she sets forth on the
most difficult voyage her people have ever undertaken, sailing beyond the
Sunset Sea and across the Nameless Ocean. A fascinating exploration of
culture, family, and identity, about finding your way and discovering where
you belong.”
—Pat Murphy, author of The Adventures of Mary Darling
and The Wild Girls
Reviews
[An] epic journey plays out as a feminist odyssey
through six distinctive and mostly matriarchal cultures, superbly
constructed around permutations of myth and legend. McIntyre’s
scene-setting is lush and immersive, and her finely drawn, women-led
cast leaps off the page as they confront obstacles with wit and wisdom.
This sensitive and captivating voyage of discovery is a fitting capstone
to a remarkable career. (Read the whole review)
—Publishers Weekly, March, 2026
This book is Vonda
McIntyre’s last novel. She finished it just before she died, and it has
been lovingly crafted into publishable shape by her many friends....It
would have been great if Vonda had been able to live to see praise being
heaped upon the book, but praise it we shall anyway. (Read the whole review)
—Salon Futura, Cheryl Morgan, March 30, 2026
[A] magnificent achievement. I first read The Curve of the World in three long sessions throughout one day. I could not put it down (well, I had to eat), because Vonda’s slow, deliberate worldbuilding is profoundly absorbing. Initially we assume that Iakinthu inhabits a perfect utopia for women, but the slow-burn hints about the repression of males in these cultures make the narrative feel genuinely urgent: After all, the volcano god is gendered male, and the cracks found each morning in the buildings are getting larger with every subtle earth tremor.--Kate Macdonald, Strange Horizons May 11, 2026 (read the whole review here: https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/non-fiction/the-curve-of-the-world-by-vonda-n-mcintyre/)
Publisher's Note
The Curve of the World is Vonda N. McIntyre’s final novel. When she
died in 2019, the manuscript was complete. Judging by the file name, the
manuscript she left was in at least its fifth iteration. She bequeathed it to
Clarion West, an organization dear to her heart, and Clarion West hired
agent Jennie Goloboy to represent the novel; Aqueduct Press acquired it
through her.
Not all readers will realize that the publication of a book involves more
than simply printing copies of a manuscript accepted for publication. At
every stage, the author engages in a collaborative process that aims to make
the author’s work the best that it can be. And so, once Aqueduct decided
to publish Vonda’s novel, we knew that we would need a writer to stand in
loco Vondae to engage in that process. Clarion West hired the highly accomplished
Nisi Shawl to do just that.
The collaborative process in bringing Curve into the world principally
involved four people: Nisi Shawl, Debbie Notkin (whom Vonda wished to
copy-edit her book), Kath Wilham, and me. Kath made the first pass, correcting
obvious typos and marking the ms with queries in the margins anent
variant spellings, inconsistencies, and occasional awkward diction. I then
did a thorough line edit and raised more questions, the sort I would ask any
author, some of which I knew would require judgment calls, and addressed
Kath’s queries. Nisi then addressed my line-edits and our queries as well as
adding new queries before sending the file back to me. Throughout, Nisi
and I had numerous Zoom conversations to supplement the discussion taking
place in the manuscript’s margins. When we’d resolved most of the issues
raised in the queries, the file went to Debbie Notkin, who copy-edited
the manuscript and contributed to the discussion in the margins as well as
a few new queries. Nisi then addressed Debbie’s edits and comments, had
another discussion with me on Zoom seeking to resolve the remaining unresolved
queries, and sent the file on to Kath for typesetting.
Our concern throughout was to be as faithful as possible to Vonda’s
intentions. Nisi’s constant goal was to preserve Vonda’s voice, while my primary
concern was determining which stylistic prose habits in the ms were
tics (i.e., scaffolding for the writing process that needed to be removed before
publication), and which were intentional. This was particularly tricky
for me because the narrative form and style of Curve mark a departure from
the standard narrative forms and styles dominating fantasy and science
fiction, which meant that some of those stylistic habits preoccupying me
were likely intentional. All such calls ordinarily would be made through
author-editor discussion.
The four of us have done our best to serve the novel as well as to preserve
Vonda’s voice and intuit her intentions. This final work by Vonda is bold,
confident, and innovative, helping us to imagine what humans from a spectrum
of cultures can be to one another. It is my pleasure to be publishing it.
L. Timmel Duchamp, December 2025
