The Smallest Spark
First Published:
29 October 2015Before she died, Boston Xialanthi was powerful and important, but resurrected in the City of the Saved she finds she is an outcast. In an attempt to find a purpose in her afterlife she sets out to meet someone to love.
‘The Smallest Spark’ was my first story set in the City of the Saved. It is a science fiction romance, inspired both by modern dating stories and Pygmalion/My Fair Lady.
Published in:
Furthest Tales of the City

Even the secular afterlife created for humanity by the Secret Architects has its limits – and there will always be those Citizens who chafe against those limits. Environmentally, culturally, biologically, cosmologically, politically, experientially, some will always seek to go further.
For instance…
A group mind facing the troubling truth of resurrection. A comatose giant with human inhabitants of its own. A civilisation re-enacting an impossible apocalypse. A woman with negligible human ancestry out on the dating scene. A cult who inhabit the deep infrastructure underlying the City. A fictional adventurer starved of the risks his narrative craves.
These are their tales.
Buy from:
- Obverse Books
Publication Formats:
- PaperbackEbookISBN9781909031340