A debut novel of remarkable beauty and invention, The Fortunate Fall is back for the first time in almost three decades as a Tor Essential, with a new introduction by Jo Walton.

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

On its first publication in 1996, The Fortunate Fall was hailed as a sci-fi novel of a wired future on par with the debuts of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Now it returns, in advance of forthcoming new work by the same author. It is one of the great underground classics of the last several decades in science fiction.

Maya Andreyeva is a camera, a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What sh esees, millions see; what she feels, millions share.

And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world… and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal—of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.

This new Tor Essentials edition of The Fortunate Fall includes a new introduction by Jo Walton, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.