The Curve of the World

This world is round. Loving sailors court its waves, bathe in sea currents happily sharing secrets with them, waters telling them where to go and how best to navigate their way. With persistence as gentle and stubborn as worn stones, multiple award winner Vonda N. McIntyre shows us versions of everyday Minoan activities based on common sense and historical research, then flings us outward from that safe harbor into the wildest of adventures. Monsters, volcanoes, pirates, mummy kings—all these dangers must be passed as ambassador and former bull-dancer Iakinthu travels thousands of miles on a mission to return her foster son to his Pacific coast home.Vonda treats the whole enterprise of bringing her last novel to life with the calm assurance of a favorite aunt taking you shopping in the best sex toy store ever. Sensory delights abound, from the soothing oil massaged into bathers’ skins to the cool mountain breezes buoying up ship-burdened balloons. The most audacious realities rise and ebb beneath her steady yet unobtrusive attention. We readers of The Curve of the World are truly fortunate to have such an elegant inevitability of a story so beautifully unfolded here before us.”A gentle elegiac tone pervades this stunning posthumous historical fantasy from multi–Hugo and Nebula award winner McIntyre (Dreamsnake), who died in 2019. In ancient Crete, Iakinthu, a former bull dancer, is at the apex of her second profession as chief diplomat-trader of her seafaring nation. To fulfill Minoan tradition, she must take her adopted son, Rhenthizu, to meet his birth mother in a faraway land no Minoan has ever visited, after which he will choose which woman to live with. Their epic journey plays out as a feminist odyssey through six distinctive and mostly matriarchal cultures, superbly constructed around permutations of myth and legend. McIntyre’s scene-setting is lush and immersive, and her finely drawn, women-led cast leaps off the page as they confront obstacles with wit and wisdom. This sensitive and captivating voyage of discovery is a fitting capstone to a remarkable career.”—Publishers Weekly, May 2026"The Curve of the World is magnificent, a glorious vision of a wider reality: a world in which global commerce and fairness are not a contradiction in terms. It is the sum and summit of all Vonda McIntyre was as a writer and human being, her last, best gift to a world in sore need of hope."—Nicola Griffith, author of Ammonite and Hild“I loved this book! It’s a glorious adventure with a heart as big as the world! Iakinthu Gephyra is a diplomat, trader, explorer, and the ‘bridge between people’ who strives to understand and accept cultures that are not her own. To find the family of her adopted child, she sets forth on the most difficult voyage her people have ever undertaken, sailing beyond the Sunset Sea and across the Nameless Ocean. A fascinating exploration of culture, family, and identity, about finding your way and discovering where you belong.”—Pat Murphy, author The Adventures of Mary Darling and The Wild Girls“A vivid, luminous novel. As Minoan traders travel the ancient world, McIntyre brings to richly imagined life six distinctive cultures of antiquity, all touched with magic. The characters are so real that I could see, feel, even smell them, and I passionately wanted each to succeed at their various quests. The Curve Of The World is a wonderful capstone to a storied career.”—Nancy Kress, author of Observer Read more