In a battle to save the world from destruction, magic and science reach a dangerous and fantastical stalemate. But that tension and violence are not the focus of Charlie Jane Anders' novel, ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY. Instead, it is the friendship and affection between two characters each typifying one of those powerful forces. Patricia Delfine represents the uncontrolled, organic and unpredictable powers of nature, while Laurence Armstead signifies the ordered yet hazardous promises of science. The book follows their relationship over the years as they struggle to understand their gifts as well as their responsibilities.

"ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY is romantic, audacious and, perhaps most importantly, a thoroughly entertaining book that challenges the parameters and conventions of science fiction and fantasy in wonderful ways."

Patricia and Laurence are born oddballs and outcasts. Patricia’s parents see her as lazy and unambitious, preferring her secretly sadistic older sister. Patricia turns toward nature instead of people, and, after an encounter with a grand and sentient tree and a parliament of birds, she comes to know herself as a witch capable of strange magic that connects her to living things in amazing ways. When she meets Laurence in middle school, he is a tech geek who has already created a working time machine, albeit one that only goes two seconds into the future. Laurence imagines life at a school for math and science where he can be himself. They are both targets of bullies and misunderstood by their own families, but at least they have each other.

They have each other, that is, until the arrival at their school of Theodolphus Rose, a trained assassin posing as the guidance counselor. Rose had seen visions of a future full of “[d]eath and chaos, engines of destruction, whole cities crumbling, and a plague of madness. And, at the last, a war between magic and science that would leave the world in ashes.” To stop this devastation, he believes, means separating, perhaps even destroying, those who would usher in this apocalypse: Patricia and Laurence. The two are forced apart, and each follows a destiny that ultimately brings them together again as young adults. But by then, the wheels are in motion for the catastrophe Rose envisioned, and it may prove too difficult for Patricia (with her Tricker and Healer magic) and Laurence (with his Pathway to Infinity) to stop.

What will triumph in the battle between magic and science? What is more powerful in the struggle between love and doubt? ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY tackles these questions as its protagonists find romance in a world unraveling. With a little help from a magic-science Artificial Intelligence love-child, the world may be able to create itself anew. Before that, however, readers are treated to a smart and wacky novel with great gadgets, secret societies, enchanted schools, philosophic musings, ecological conundrums and dramatic possibilities.

ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY is romantic, audacious and, perhaps most importantly, a thoroughly entertaining book that challenges the parameters and conventions of science fiction and fantasy in wonderful ways.