Author

Cadwell Turnbull

Cadwell Turnbull is the award-winning author of The Lesson; the Convergence Saga, including No Gods, No Monsters, We Are the Crisis, and A Ruin, Great and Free; and the debut short fiction collection All the Hidden Places. He is also a member of the five-author collaborative writing team Darkly Lem, creators of the Formation Saga.

His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. His work has received numerous honors, including the Neukom Institute Literary Award and Lambda Literary Award, with additional recognition from the Shirley Jackson Awards, VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and Massachusetts Book Awards.

Find him at cadwellturnbull.com

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Author Praise
“Like Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin before him, Turnbull uses the tools of science fiction to illuminate the human heart.”

John Kessel, Nebula Award–winning author

New & Fan-Favorite Standalones

All the Hidden Places

NEW RELEASE!

Step into hidden worlds, alternate realities, and strange possibilities in this genre-bending collection of speculative stories exploring power, justice, identity, community, and the worlds that exist just beyond our own.

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The Lesson

  • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 in Science Fiction
  • A Library Journal Best Book of 2019 in Science Fiction & Fantasy

A thought-provoking work of speculative fiction exploring first contact, colonialism, identity, and resistance as an alien occupation transforms life in the U.S. Virgin Islands and forces one community to confront the complicated costs of coexistence.

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The Convergence Saga

The award-winning Convergence Saga is an ambitious speculative fantasy series where monsters live among us, ancient powers collide with the modern world, and ordinary people are caught in a struggle that challenges the boundaries of identity, community, power, and what it means to be human.

No Gods, No Monsters

  • Named a BEST BOOK OF 2021 by the New York Times, NPR, the New York Public Library, Audible, Tor.com, Book Riot, Library Journal, and Kirkus!
  • Longlisted for the 2022 PEN Open Book Award

A bold speculative fantasy in which monsters reveal themselves to the world, igniting a struggle over identity, power, community, and who gets to define what makes someone human.

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We Are the Crisis

  • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
  • Named a BEST BOOK OF 2023 by Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Goodreads, and Locus Magazine

As monsters step further into the public eye, competing movements, hidden forces, and escalating violence collide in a widening battle over the future of monsters and humanity.

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A Ruin, Great and Free

  • Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award
  • Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by Library Journal

The Convergence Saga reaches its epic conclusion as the boundaries between worlds collapse and its characters confront the forces reshaping reality, community, and the possibility of a freer future.

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More from Cadwell Turnbull

The Formation Saga Novels

The Formation Saga by Darkly Lem* is a dark, cerebral fantasy series that blends metaphysical horror, psychological tension, and high-concept speculative worldbuilding. 

*Darkly Lem is a cohort of five authors in an impeccably tailored trench coat, namely Josh Eure, Craig Lincoln, Ben Murphy, Cadwell Turnbull, and M. Darusha Wehm.
EXPLORE THE SERIES