Elysium “does not tell a story so much as it narrates the very process of telling a story.” –Steven Shaviro, in the Los Angeles Review of Books
Skyboat was intrigued when our Lightspeed compadre, the amazing Jim Freund of The New York Review of Science Fiction came to us with this project. Jim is a longtime Skyboater, and a gentleman of infinite knowledge and good taste when it comes to all things science fiction and all things audio. Jim produced and cast the supernova new talent of Jayme Méri Grant and even edited the project, and the lovely Claire Bloom directed.
ELYSIUM: OR, THE WORLD AFTER by Jennifer Marie Brissett
Read by Jamye Méri Grant
Recipient of a 2015 Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation and Finalist for the 2015 Locus Award for Best First Novel
A 2014 Locus Recommendation for First Novel and placed on the 2014 Honor List for the Tiptree Award
The novel depicts a computer program who is etched into the atmosphere who has a story to tell—the story of two people, of a city lost to chaos, of survival and love. The program’s data, however, has been corrupted.
As the novel’s characters struggle to survive the apocalypse, they are sustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered world both haunted and dangerous.
“Science fiction is never really about the future. It’s the past and the present in disguise. Science fiction is more a setting and a place and a time, more than predictions of the future. It allows us, if we are willing, to step outside of our current circumstances and look at ourselves from a different angle.” –Author Jennifer Marie Brissett in “Victory Lap: An Interview with Jennifer Marie Brissett” by Sofia Samatar in Strange Horizons
Author Jennifer Marie Brissett. Photo by Bradley Lau
Jennifer Marie Brissett is a writer, artist, and teacher, as well as a former bookstore owner (Indigo Café & Books in Brooklyn, NY) and web developer. She holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine concentrating in Speculative Fiction and a Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Engineering from Boston University. Her stories can be found in Motherboard, The Future Fire, Morpheus Tales, Warrior Wisewoman 2, and Halfway Down the Stairs, and more. (Check out “The Executioner” in Lightspeed Magazine!). Her debut novel, ELYSIUM, received the Philip K. Dick Special Citation and was a finalist for the Locus Award and the Tiptree Award. Her next novel DESTROYER OF LIGHT is forthcoming from Tor Books in October 2021.
“Her subtle morphings of identity and circumstance among her deeply felt characters serve to make us ponder…what make up the core constituents of self and personality, and what is superficial.” –from Paul Di Filippo’s review of Jennifer Marie Brissett in Locus Magazine
Narrator Jayme Méri Grant
Our wonderful narrator? Jamye Méri Grant attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas, where she was a Presidential Scholar and the recipient of the prestigious YoungArts award. She studied theater arts at Pepperdine University and has acted in numerous theater performances, as well as in film and television.
“Jamye Méri Grant does wonderful work here. She has a lovely low alto, which I always think is the most adaptable pitch for many voices…The audiobook production offers a clever adaptation of the text…a gorgeous book.” —Locus (audio review)
Purchase your copy of ELYSIUM today!
