A PW Booklife Best of 2024 Winner A PW Booklife Editor's Pick A Kirkus Reviews Starred Pick A Foreword INDIES Award Finalist Truth must be a fragile thing if it only survives in one language. Kanan and Tei live in a universe with carbon walls, small enough that fully grown humans can run around it in seventeen minutes. The earth under their blue-skinned feet is made of silica, and yellow suns glow out of a flat metallic sky. Whatever lies outside their universe is, by definition, Nothing. Just over their heads, in a place that shouldn't exist, lives an alien race. These creatures also call themselves human, but they have bodies without skin and tongues that speak gibberish. Their alien world is full of things Kanan and Tei are incapable of naming without betraying their own humanity. When a twist of fate brings these two worlds crashing together, Kanan and Tei find themselves racing unwillingly towards treason: Tei with his mind, Kanan with her legs. As their language grows, so does their universe. But the more they learn about the history of the human race, the more they wonder if they've ever truly been human—or if they even want to be. Brimming with beauty, mystery, and literary innovation, The Limits of My World daringly confronts the fragility of the words that make us who we are. §§§ Gregory Coles is the award-winning author of two memoirs and a contributor to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal Author Quest . He is also an intermittent English professor whose work in rhetorical theory—how language shapes society—has appeared in various academic journals and edited collections, including a collection from Cambridge University Press. "Provocative and imaginative.... The author's gradual revelation of the true nature of the 'universe' is masterful, accented by themes of subjective perception, self-deception, and language." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Fiercely original.... A captivating story of truth, good and evil, and what constitutes being 'human.'" — BookLife Reviews "Exciting, innovative new ways of understanding the shared universe are introduced in the provocative science fiction novel The Limits of My World ." — Foreword Clarion Reviews "In a dazzling and devastating tale of language, love, and what it means to be human, Gregory Coles's transportive and visionary novel highlights the dangers of holding too tightly to our own notions of the world." — Kimi Cunningham Grant, author of These Silent Woods "In this genre-defying debut novel, Coles writes with bold assurance, probing the expansiveness of time and space to bring us an imaginative and unflinching glimpse at what it means to be human. Marked by moments of both horror and hope, it's a story as unique—and as intriguing—as anything else I've read this year." — Steven James, author of Synapse "Gregory Coles has created a captivating world that asks readers to consider the true nature of our shared humanity. For me, The Limits of My World takes its place beside Ender's Game, A Wrinkle In Time, and Ready Player One as a fantastical sci-fi story that speaks vividly to the heart of modern life. I found myself challenged to build richer worlds that inspire my players as profoundly as this story inspired me." — Amy Noel Green, BAFTA Award-winning game designer