Chana Porter is a playwright, teacher, MacDowell Colony fellow, and co-founder of the Octavia Project, a STEM and fiction-writing program for girls and gender non-conforming youth from underserved communities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is currently at work on her next novel.
An ABA Indie Next Pick for February 2020
An Open Letters Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of 2020
A 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist
A Times (UK) Best Sci-fi Book of 2021
Praise for The Seep
“A unique alien invasion story that focuses on the human and the
myriad ways we see and don’t see our own world. Mesmerizing.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, award–winning author of Dead Astronauts and the
Southern Reach trilogy
“The standard canard is that utopian settings are boring,
monolithic, didactic, and make for bad fiction. How lucky we are to
have Chana Porter to blow such nonsense out of the water with this
moving and beautiful book.”
—China Miéville
“The psychedelics are coming! The psychedelics are coming! What if
becoming one with the universe was as easy as drinking punch at a
party? It turns out that after enlightenment, we still squabble
with our partners, worry about fashion choices, and drink too much
booze. A great speculative work combining first contact tropes,
techno-utopian fantasy, gender theory, and ayahuasca fan fiction,
Chana Porter's The Seep imagines a brave newer world by rewriting
the question of the ancients: If all things return to the one,
where does the one return to? Porter's dazzling trick answer
updates Zhaozhou's: the bar.”
—Eugene Lim, author of Dear Cyborgs
“With its wonderfully fraught utopia, the likes of which you have
never seen before, The Seep defies not only the recent glut of
dystopias, but the long-accepted categories of fiction. An entire
universe gets packed into a slim page-turner, in which the search
for meaning carries on even after our greatest desires are
met.”
—Robert Repino, author of the War with No Name novels
“In a time of dreary dystopias, Chana Porter's The Seep is that
rarest of books: a genuine utopian hope of salvation. While the
novel accomplishes this through an alien intervention, its message
is not simply one of blind optimism, but a complex portrait of
people struggling with change, fear, and ultimately hope. Porter
shows us that the end of the world is easy. The beginning of the
world is the real challenge.”
—Rachel Pollack, award-winning author of Godmother Night
"The Seep is an alien life form that comes to inhabit humanity in
Chana Porter's quasi-utopian, surreal fantasy . . . A love story, a
story of loss."
—A Novel Idea, KRCB-FM
“Unlike anything you’ve ever read.”
—Bustle
“Speculative fiction rarely depicts alien invasions as benevolent,
but Chana Porter’s delicious first novel does just that . . . The
Seep is a glorious interrogation of human feelings and
relationships and how they shape who we are.”
—Amy Brady, Literary Hub
“Absorbing.”
—Ms. Magazine
“One that you need to add to your TBR . . . A reflection on
grief and moving on, what it’s like to be alien, and what it’s like
to be alienated . . . An interesting meditation on othering, love,
loss, and grief.”
—Book Riot
“[A] deeply impressive debut novel”
—Open Letters
"A novel that’s rapturously moving and as haunting a tale of love,
loss and grief as you’ll read this year . . . If you’re like me and
looking for some sort of escape this quarantine, this is as perfect
a book as you could imagine."
—CriterionCast Book Club
“Porter’s gripping, subtly hopeful work of literary speculative
fiction is shaped by remarkable world-building elements and acute
observation of human frailties and impetus.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“In Porter’s surreal, introspective debut, a benevolent alien
invasion leads humanity into a utopia, exploring themes of grief
and discontentment within a seemingly perfect world . . . Readers
will delight in the eerie disquietude and optimism of this
well-calibrated what-if.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“An intoxicating takeover narrative, its promises as appealing on
their surfaces as they are frightening in their implications . . .
The Seep is a daring paean to human vulnerability and a bold
speculative inquest into what makes life worth living.”
—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review
“This surreal debut takes on themes of utopia, identity, love, and
loss, while readers are pulled into a full experience through
Porter’s fluid prose. This unusual story will linger long past the
last page.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review
“Porter’s surreal novel puts a new spin on alien invasion.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Reminiscent of Sheri S. Tepper and Ursula K. Le Guin, especially
with the themes of female empowerment, LGBT+ identity, and
explorations of what it really means to be human as explored from
the lens of an entity that is not . . . What could have been dark
is lightened by some humor and a surrealistic, fantasy-like
environment that swirls around you like a Dali painting.”
—Readasaurus Reviews
“This is an entirely surreal reading experience that explores
identity—queer and racial, self and inherited—in an organic and
necessary manner. A must-read for everyone.”
—Avery Peregrine, Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park, WA)
“I honestly don’t know how to review this book. Any attempts I
would make to describe it, and the post-existential questions it
poses, would not do it any justice. If you like political science
fiction, or just weird stories, pick up this book. It reads
incredibly quickly, and keeps a hold of your thoughts long after
you put it down.”
—Left Bank Books (St. Louis, MO)
“A unique take on an alien invasion. The Seep makes everything
better, but does it? The Seep helps you see the inner-connectivity
of all life, but at what cost? What happens to your individuality
and free will in a world where there is no conflict? A great book
about how we define ourselves and our humanity.”
—James Wilson, Octavia Books (New Orleans, LA)
“What I love most about The Seep is that it’s two parts questions
to one part answers. It does a great job of clearing up certain
gray areas, and it actually gives some answers to the hard
questions it asks—but it also leaves area for speculation and
thought. The Seep will leave you begging for more, and I can’t wait
to see what Chana Porter whips up next.”
—Lizy Coale, Copperfish Books (Punta Gorda, FL)
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