“This World Is Not Yours” is fast-paced, queer, horror novella by Kemi Ashing-Giwa, blending Cassandra Khaw's inventive horror with a planetary intelligence reminiscent of Sue Burke's Semiosis. A heady, toxic cocktail of a beautiful but macabre world, and a toxic, queer polycule consumed by jealousy and pushed to unforgiveable betrayals.
After fleeing her controlling and murderous family with her fiancée Vinh, Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, along with her childhood friend, Jesse.
The planet, beautiful and lethal, produces the Gray, a "self-cleaning" mechanism that New Belaforme's scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves until a rival colony wakes the Gray.
As Amara, Vinh, and Jesse work to carve out a new life together, each is haunted by past betrayals that surface, expounded by the need to survive the rival colony and the planet itself.
"A herculean work of ambition, This World Is Not Yours is not only a fantastic story of extraterrestrial threats and survival in alien worlds, but also a startlingly accurate examination of interpersonal relationships"
Cassandra Khaw, author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth and The Salt Grows Heavy
"A rich, sharp shock of a novella, churning with corrupted love and corrupted nature. This World Is Not Yours may occur galaxies away, but the dread it evokes is anything but alien. Because we all suspect our own version of the Gray is out there, don't we? And we're all preparing for its embrace."
Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror
"Intricate world building with characters that feel like people you know in real life. I loved this take on cli-fi and the unexpected way in which humans are, as always, their own worst enemy."
