An emotionally wounded woman finds connection, community, and her own sense of humanity in this powerful and beautifully written novel. Morgan Shelby has lost her parents, her lover, and her joy in life. She has inherited a sprawling old house whose upkeep is beyond her means, and she doesn't notice when the aliens land--she's busy recruiting tenants and fighting depression. Then she's hired to raise Blue, an infant alien sent to learn about Earth. Blue's government watchdogs aren't happy about the unconventional Morgan's influence on Blue, and no one in the household is ready for the ways in which Blue disrupts their lives and questions their assumptions about what it means to be human.

A Paradigm of Earth is a sophisticated and moving study of alienation and humanity, with real characters in complex relationships, full of humor and hope. An excellent book for lovers of literary science fiction. --Roz Genessee


From Publishers Weekly
In a radical departure from her austere first novel, Black Wine (1997), Canadian author Dorsey has produced a powerful character study filled with colorful and highly emotive language. Wounded by the sudden loss of her parents and the desertion of her long-time partner, Morgan Shelby moves to central Canada, where she has inherited an old mansion. She soon stocks the place with a menagerie of eccentric boarders, including a disabled painter and a drag queen with an international reputation as a dancer. The world has taken a conservative turn in the near future, and it's a difficult time to be gay in Canada. Nonetheless, Morgan, whose career has centered on caring for severely disabled children, soon finds herself interviewing for a surprising new job: the government hires her to help raise an alien. The creature is a tabula rasa, a blank slate, one of a dozen such possibly artificial beings scattered across our planet with the expressed purpose of learning about our culture. Morgan's relationship with Blue, as she names the androgynous creature, starts out professionally, but quickly becomes much more personal when Blue runs away from its secret government facility and turns up on Morgan's doorstep. Morgan's development from a depressed, hollow shell of a person to someone who can both love and be loved is detailed with impressive skill. Those interested in gender and feminism, as well as fans of thoughtful, emotion-centered SF, have a treat in store. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The arrival of alien children to live in human households signals a change of life for Morgan Shelby, still mourning the death of her parents. As Morgan and her housemates teach and learn from the alien Blue, they come face to face with difficult truths and rediscover a sense of wholeness until a series of murders throws everything into question. Set in an ultra-conservative 21st-century Canada, this tale of growth and discovery by the author of Black Wine pays tribute to such sf classics as Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and the philosophical novels of Theodore Sturgeon. A good choice for most sf collections. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Morgan has lost what seems like everything. She is drained and empty--without parents, job, and lover. Her mother's will leaves her a mansion, however, that had been a family secret. She changes her life and what she can of her identity and, thinking of her childhood hero, Mother Teresa, takes her inheritance as possibly redeeming recompense for her failures. She is not ready for the alien, but then she is barely aware of its arrival. What unfolds from her first encounter with it is a blooming of love and of a family of circumstance that undergoes trauma and joy. Although socially marginal, Dorsey's characters are ordinary enough, believable because of their flaws, and become extraordinary through their circumstances and relationships. The alien, sent to learn a "paradigm of Earth," is the crux of everything that develops as it becomes human through the lessons it learns from Morgan and her housemates. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"As brilliant as William Gibson, as complex as Gene Wolfe, with a humanity and passion all her own, Candas Jane Dorsey isn't just a comer, she's a winner."
--Ursula K. Le Guin

“This tale of growth and discovery by the author of Black Wine pays tribute to such SF classics as Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and the philosophical novels of Theodore Sturgeon.” –Library Journal

“Of the aliens outside Earth’s atmosphere, all any of us can do is guess. Of the aliens among us, we can do far more than we have to understand and accept. Authors have made an attempt at bridging that gap; few have done it as perceptively and deftly as Candas Jane Dorsey has in this ground-breaking novel. . . . Readers will get the best portrayal of bisexuals ever to come to print. Certainly, it is a landmark in the literary treatment of this group. . . . A fresh look at the nature of what may be out there and those that are already among us? It’s a huge task to ask of a novel or a novelist, but A Paradigm of Earth pulls it off in a dazzling, entrancing fashion. And, somehow, Dorsey gives off the impression that it is all so easy. Isn’t that a definition of genius?”—SFSite.com



Review
"As brilliant as William Gibson, as complex as Gene Wolfe, with a humanity and passion all her own, Candas Jane Dorsey isn't just a comer, she's a winner."
--Ursula K. Le Guin

“This tale of growth and discovery by the author of Black Wine pays tribute to such SF classics as Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and the philosophical novels of Theodore Sturgeon.” –Library Journal

“Of the aliens outside Earth’s atmosphere, all any of us can do is guess. Of the aliens among us, we can do far more than we have to understand and accept. Authors have made an attempt at bridging that gap; few have done it as perceptively and deftly as Candas Jane Dorsey has in this ground-breaking novel. . . . Readers will get the best portrayal of bisexuals ever to come to print. Certainly, it is a landmark in the literary treatment of this group. . . . A fresh look at the nature of what may be out there and those that are already among us? It’s a huge task to ask of a novel or a novelist, but A Paradigm of Earth pulls it off in a dazzling, entrancing fashion. And, somehow, Dorsey gives off the impression that it is all so easy. Isn’t that a definition of genius?”—SFSite.com



Review
"As brilliant as William Gibson, as complex as Gene Wolfe, with a humanity and passion all her own, Candas Jane Dorsey isn't just a comer, she's a winner."
--Ursula K. Le Guin

“This tale of growth and discovery by the author of Black Wine pays tribute to such SF classics as Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and the philosophical novels of Theodore Sturgeon.” –Library Journal

“Of the aliens outside Earth’s atmosphere, all any of us can do is guess. Of the aliens among us, we can do far more than we have to understand and accept. Authors have made an attempt at bridging that gap; few have done it as perceptively and deftly as Candas Jane Dorsey has in this ground-breaking novel. . . . Readers will get the best portrayal of bisexuals ever to come to print. Certainly, it is a landmark in the literary treatment of this group. . . . A fresh look at the nature of what may be out there and those that are already among us? It’s a huge task to ask of a novel or a novelist, but A Paradigm of Earth pulls it off in a dazzling, entrancing fashion. And, somehow, Dorsey gives off the impression that it is all so easy. Isn’t that a definition of genius?”—SFSite.com



Book Description
Candas Jane Dorsey's first novel, the fantasy Black Wine, won three significant awards and got enthusiastic reviews across the United States and Canada. Now Dorsey returns with a literary SF parable about a woman named Morgan and her offbeat household. In the near future, when political and social conservatism dominate society, Morgan inherits a big, century-old mansion in a prairie city and moves there to rebuild her life. She fills the house with sexual misfits and political outcasts, in a sense, orphans like herself. But the final tenant is one she never could have imagined: an alien child.



About the Author
Candas Jane Dorsey lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Dorsey returns with a literary SF parable about a woman named Morgan and her offbeat household. In the near future, when political and social conservatism dominates society, Morgan inherits a big, century-old mansion in a prairie city and moves there to rebuild her life. She fills the house with sexual misfits and political outcasts, in a sense, orphans like herself. But the final tenant is one she never could have imagined." A dozen or more humanoid alien infants have been brought to Earth to be given into the care of major Earth governments. This is stunning but distant news - until Morgan is hired to raise one of them, named Blue. When Blue confounds everyone by insisting on coming, with all the attendant government surveillance, to live in Morgan's house, conflict is inevitable and a murder is committed. But the mysteries of the alien boy ( or is it a girl?) in their midst are more profound than the mystery of the crime. Through it all, Morgan's ideals never waver, she truly believes that all beings, human and alien, can live in harmony. Dorsey's skill with characters, both human and alien, and with their complex relationships, will evoke comparisons with the SF classics of Theodore Sturgeon.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In a radical departure from her austere first novel, Black Wine (1997), Canadian author Dorsey has produced a powerful character study filled with colorful and highly emotive language. Wounded by the sudden loss of her parents and the desertion of her long-time partner, Morgan Shelby moves to central Canada, where she has inherited an old mansion. She soon stocks the place with a menagerie of eccentric boarders, including a disabled painter and a drag queen with an international reputation as a dancer. The world has taken a conservative turn in the near future, and it's a difficult time to be gay in Canada. Nonetheless, Morgan, whose career has centered on caring for severely disabled children, soon finds herself interviewing for a surprising new job: the government hires her to help raise an alien. The creature is a tabula rasa, a blank slate, one of a dozen such possibly artificial beings scattered across our planet with the expressed purpose of learning about our culture. Morgan's relationship with Blue, as she names the androgynous creature, starts out professionally, but quickly becomes much more personal when Blue runs away from its secret government facility and turns up on Morgan's doorstep. Morgan's development from a depressed, hollow shell of a person to someone who can both love and be loved is detailed with impressive skill. Those interested in gender and feminism, as well as fans of thoughtful, emotion-centered SF, have a treat in store. (Oct. 26) FYI: Black Wine won the Tiptree and IAFA/Crawford awards. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal