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For Your Consideration – Triptych by J.M. Frey

Awards nomination season is upon us.  If you’ve found this page, it means that you’re considering nominating Triptych. I want to thank you very much for considering my novel. It’s humbling and amazing that there has been enough interest in the book that I have even been requested to create this blog post.  Even if I don’t get a nomination, the fact that people are considering it means the world to me.

There’s something incredible and daunting as a new author about the prospects of people paying attention to you and your work. Wonderful, heart-warming, slightly terrifying in that “am I crazy to think I’m good enough for this?” way, but in the end, heartening. Because when the names start getting named and the accolades start arriving, something incredible happens – you realize that you are part of something that has touched people.

Something bigger than you, and your ideas, and gruelling hours hunched over a laptop breathing rudimentary, recalcitrant life into the worlds and creatures that you so desperately love.  Somewhere, along the line, someone else found merit in what you have done – someone else fell in love with it.

I’m talking about the audience, the book bloggers and the reviewers and readership, of course, but I am also talking about the other people who have worked hard to love a book as much as the author has. I’m talking about the agents, the editors, the publishers, the cover artists, the designers and typesetters, the convention programmers and charity presidents who have tracked you down and invited you to their events, the family who lovingly scolds you if you miss your deadlines, the friends who are as excited about your successes as if they were your own.

All the people who read what you wrote and said, “Yes, this is worth falling in love with. And this is worth fighting for. And this is worth creating for.” And that? That is an incredible feeling.

So thank you.

There is a long history of “For Your Consideration”; the film business has made it ubiquitous. But this season, as you read my “Consideration” post below, I ask that you not only consider Triptych for the various writing categories for which it may be eligible, but also take the time to consider nominating my editor and guiding light, Gabrielle Harbowy, without whom my current career would not exist, Gwen Gades my publisher, and Charles Bernard, my cover artist.

And now, to the info about Triptych:

A free copy of Triptych is available to SFWA members in the ‘Nebula Consideration’ forum.

Synopsis:

You know those movies where the aliens come to Earth, and they… I dunno, they try to steal our natural resources, or create a nuclear winter so they can turn the Earth into slag, or they melt the polar ice caps and New York is under fathoms of water, or they clone us for slaves, or create terrifying bioweapons and wipe us all out and use our cities for farmland, or…all that stuff? It was nothing like that.”

 

IN THE NEAR FUTURE, humankind has mastered the arts of peace, tolerance, and acceptance. At least, that’s what we claim. But then THEY arrive. The last of a dying race, they request asylum on Earth. Kalp, a widower on his own, is taken in by Gwen and Basil, two Specialists with the Institute. But on Kalp’s planet, marriages came in threes. Kalp’s loneliness and desperate need for companionship might not only destroy Gwen and Basil’s relationship, but endanger every human who has ever dared to love the wrong person…

Addressing such social issues a gender performance and family dynamics, culture clashes and culture shock, prejudice, violence, and the death of children, Triptych is the modern answer to Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, an updated social commentary in the vein of Heinlein, and a compelling, crafted fiction about what it means to fight for what you love against intolerance, prejudice, and mob mentality.

Part District 9, part Lost in Translation, part Stranger in a Strange Land, Triptych is a poignant, character-driven science fiction story about tolerance, love and loss.

Reviews
“Time travel, aliens, and the politics of sexuality combine with tragic violence in Frey’s deeply satisfying debut. Aliens seeking refuge from their broken planet find it on peaceful Earth. Gwen Pierson and Basil Grey work for the U.N., helping the aliens to integrate. When alien Kalp joins their team, they learn that Kalp’s people mate in threes, and soon the trio become the first human–alien marriage. Violent protests and assassinations threaten to unravel the fragile trust between the refugees and their human hosts, so Gwen and Basil follow the assassins–back in time to the 1980s, where Gwen’s parents are still adjusting to raising newborn Gwennie. The near paradox is appropriately disorienting, but the story is so well-grounded in the characters that it never once loses its course. Frey tells the story from varying points of view in distinct voices, imagining a world at once completely alien and utterly human.”
–Publishers Weekly, Starred Review (Also named #3 on PW’s Best Books of 2011 SF/F/Hr list)

“A stirring adventure, as well as a tender love story, from a first time author who truly embraces the limitless possibilities the future may bring. JM Frey’s Triptych satisfies any sci-fi reader looking for a different take on the first contact motif, or anyone looking to explore the possible evolution of human sexuality and love.”
–Lambda Literary, Read the full review

“I finished Triptych in one go last night, couldn’t put it down even.  It’s a very impressive first novel and if Ms. Frey continues to do with science fiction what she’s done in this book she might single-handedly be credited with reviving the entire genre.  Bravo!  Encore, encore!”
Todd McCaffreyThe Dragonriders of Pern series

“A brilliantly challenging piece of pure SF.”
–The Steampunk Scholar

“Just finished it. Miss it already. Write another! It was unput-downable! Congrats!!”
–Jill Golick, co-creator of Ruby Skye, P.I. and president of the Writers Guild of Canada

Read more reviews here.

Accolades
“Debut author Frey knocks it out of the park with a remarkable tale of alien refugees, time travel, intrigue, the pervasive madness of grief, and love that transcends culture, gender, and species. Classic science fiction elements are smoothly updated for a modern audience.”
— Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2011 List
“This book has aliens, time travel, queer polyamorous romance that feels absolutely real, loss and grief and soldiering on, languages, family… in short, it was written for me. I haven’t felt this loved and acknowledged by a book in a very long time.”
Genreville blogger and PW editor Rose Fox on why she chose Triptych for the Best Books of 2011 SF/F/Hr list.
Links

Press Kit
Download J.M. Frey’s full press kit, including a current bibliography and filmography, here.

 Thank you for considering Triptych, and above all, I wish you happy reading.
JM FreyFor Your Consideration – Triptych by J.M. Frey