My novella The Four Profound Weaves is forthcoming from Tachyon Press in September 1, 2020. It is a story of two trans elders who must learn to weave from death to defeat a sinister ruler who murders rebellious women and hoards their bones and souls. It is set in Birdverse, my award-winning LGBTQIA+ focused secondary world.
Ann Leckie says: “This is one of R’s Birdverse stories, which I’ve recommended before. Their writing is lovely, their worldbuilding wonderful, their characters real and resonant.” Thank you, Ann!!
Tachyon designer Elizabeth Story did a wonderful job with the cover. Thank you, Elizabeth!! There are also gorgeous internal illustrations in this book, also by Elizabeth. And many thanks to my editor Jaymee Goh, and the managing editor Jill Roberts, who were terrific to work with. And of course, it was a pleasure to work with Jacob Weisman at Tachyon.
You can already preorder the book from Amazon, or directly from my publisher, Tachyon Press. The first 50 people to preorder directly from Tachyon will also get a small linocut of the cover, printed on the letterpress, all done by me. It’s going to be gorgeous!
The book also has a Goodreads page 🙂
Some early praise for The Four Profound Weaves:
“THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is a balm and a call to arms. R.B. Lemberg reassures us that there’s still time to find yourself, no matter how old you are; and they stir our a revolutionary urges to defeat murderous dictators. But this novella is also a finely-drawn, realistic character study of people who love their communities but never quite feel at home in them. And the magical system is a sheer delight. Thoughtful and deeply moving, THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES is the anti-authoritarian, queer-mystical fairy tale we need right now.”– Annalee Newitz
“R. B. Lemberg’s The Four Profound Weaves tells the journey of a pair of aged and appealing wanderers searching for magic, art, identity, and peace. Thought-challenging points-of-view weave together stark violence, intricate powers, and the musings of long and complicated lives. The Four Profound Weaves contains imagery that glows on the page.” –Patricia McKillip
“I am staggered by the richness and intricacy of R B Lemberg’s imagination. The Four Profound Weaves is an intense and emotional story of a journey of change, growth, and courage.” –Kate Elliott
“R.B. Lemberg writes with a luminous pen, spraying light all around their words and ideas. They create a universe where carpets and cloaks bear history and the future. A perilous chase, with assassins and gods in pursuit, reveals the fluidity of life by following the threads—both bright and dark—that weave together to create a complex and mystical journey toward friendship, family, and love.” –Jewelle Gomez
Reading the first pages of The Four Profound Weaves feels like being invited into the home of a beautiful stranger. As you sit with these characters and come to know them, you too will feel know. In reading this story about recognition and transformation, I felt recognized and transformed. It’s a fantastic alchemy on Lemberg’s part, and their love and labor shines off the page. I don’t know any writer that could so skillfully take me apart with a story, or put me back together with such care. This was a story I didn’t know I desperately needed.” –Nino Cipri
“Over the years, R.B. Lemberg, in their prose and poetry alike, has built a world of serpents, deserts, stars, and bones, where transformation is omnipresent and restlessness rewarded. The Four Profound Weaves is a jewel-bright tile in their ongoing mosaic. To read it is to experience apotheosis: but instead of toward heaven, we ascend toward a more total humanity. Weaves is a patient work, at times compellingly kind, at other times merciless. Always, subtly woven. Like the Nameless One in its pages, this book does not—perhaps cannot—pretend to be anything other than what it proclaims for itself: the four profound weaves—change, wanderlust, hope, death. But these aren’t chronological; they’re a pattern, a randomized one—and death is only the middle.” –C. S. E. Cooney
“Lemberg weaves a gripping tale of community, identity, betrayal, and hope. From the sweeping expanse of the desert to the confined splendor of a sinister palace, every page contains wonder. I flew through the story, breathless, needing to see what would come next, and I was rewarded with every twist in the narrative. The Birdverse is lush and gorgeous, even when painful, and The Four Profound Weaves takes the reader on a wild ride through some of the deepest and richest pockets of it.” –Julia Rios
“Nobody in fantasy is doing what R.B. Lemberg is doing. Their work is generous, insightful, and focused on people — older, damaged, queer — whose stories most writers would keep in the background. This is a book about people walking into traps to find themselves, about fumbling out of stagnation and into adventure. Let this be your introduction to R.B.’s world of song carpets, deepnames, and deserts full of roving lovers.”–Isaac Fellman
“Hope is the song, and it’s woven of R.B. Lemberg’s words.” –Scott H. Andrews
