Charlie Jane Anders's All the Birds in the Sky: smartass, soulful novel

It's odd to call Charlie Jane Anders, editor of IO9 and celebratedshort-story writer and editor a "debut novelist," but Allthe Birds in the Sky is her first science fiction novel foradults, and it embodies all that's best about debut novels -- alifetime's worth of creativity, frustrations and inspirations crammedinto a single set of covers, bursting with wild promise.

Patricia is a witch. One day while hiding out in the woods from herdysfunctional family -- psychotic sister, dead-eyed overachieverparents -- she discovers that she can speak to animals, and findsherself in the presence of the Parliament of Birds, who ask her ariddle. She blacks out and awakens in her family house and facingpunishment. (more…)