Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Millions

    Parallel Lives Lost: K Chess’s ‘Famous Men Who Never Lived’

    by Will Preston Feb 13, 2019 4 minutes

    In Ezra Sleight’s classic sci-fi novel The Pyronauts, the world ends in fire. Aliens in crystal spaceships arrive on Earth bearing peaceful solutions to humanity’s deepest crises: war, illness, racism, xenophobia. But the well-intentioned extraterrestrials bring along an unintended stowaway: a toxic parasite that destroys all plant life on earth. One by one, crops, flowers, and trees wither and die. Animals starve, and with them, humans. The scattered survivors resort to burning the infected landscape in hopes of killing the virus. The earth is left to smolder, charred black beyond recognition.

    is often heralded as a masterwork, a mournful allegory for the dangers of colonialism or the nuclear age. Sleight’s home in New York has been doesn’t actually exist—at least not in this world. Ezra Sleight and are part of an alternate timeline, a parallel universe that split off from ours in the early years of the 20th century.

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Millions

    The Millions4 min read
    Why Write Memoir? Two Debut Authors Weigh In
    "It was hard on many levels, and I had to keep going back to why I was writing in the first place." The post Why Write Memoir? Two Debut Authors Weigh In appeared first on The Millions.
    The Millions19 min read
    Several Attempts at Understanding Percival Everett
    I knew from the dozens of other interviews I had read with him that Everett doesn’t love doing press. “I wonder why?” he joked to me. The post Several Attempts at Understanding Percival Everett appeared first on The Millions.
    The Millions6 min read
    Against ‘Latin American Literature’
    The classification of “Latin American literature” puts both Anglophone and Hispanophone writers in a double bind. The post Against ‘Latin American Literature’ appeared first on The Millions.

    Related