A woman with no memory wakes up in a city with no history.
The city is alive. Among skyscrapers of flesh and bridges of bone, rogue trains consume their passengers, prophetic Buddhas grow out of sidewalks, and the night is lit up with walking neon signs.
The city is under siege from famine victims turned ravenous monsters, while the city's own flesh begins to mutate.
Somehow, the woman is the key in an eternal struggle pitting city against country, corruption against starvation, a power-crazed madman against a dying infant.
Hunted as a pawn by several factions, she alone may have the power to end the conflict, if she dare unlock her terrible memories. But she has to choose: between the country and the city; between the lost boy-next-door and the man who is not human; between survival and self-sacrifice.
This dark fantasy novel - at times wondrous, at others horrific - will amaze and haunt you.
"an interesting read... It starts in an empty hotel. A woman, waking, dreaming of food, her memory gone. A mystery... Here the fascination begins. She has a mission yet to be discovered, but within a city that is itself living... Half the enjoyment is simply in the exploration, a magical journey surrounded by wonders, but also indications of tension, perhaps even war. And always avoiding the zombie-like "Hungry Ones" of the book's title. Fascinating."
--James Dorr, Bram Stoker Award nominee for The Tears of Isis
"an exquisitely complex and unique story...the ending just walloped me. Very, very impressive!"
--Laurie Hilburn, Clicking Keys
Author Biography:
E LANA G OMEL has taught and researched English literature at Tel-Aviv University, Princeton, Stanford, Venice International University and the University of Hong Kong where she spent a memorable year. Since then, she has visited Hong Kong, mainland China, Japan, Thailand and Cambodia many times, both as an academic and as a traveler, immersing herself in these countries' cultures, histories and present-day struggles. The Hungry Ones reflects her fascination with Asian cityscapes and dreamscapes. She is the author of four academic books, including Bloodscripts: Writing the Violent Subject (2003), Postmodern Science Fiction and Temporal Imagination (2010), and Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism: Beyond the Golden Rule London (2014). In 2009 she published The Pilgrim Soul: Being Russian in Israel, which is one of the first comprehensive treatments of the subject. She is the author of more than 40 fantasy, horror and science fiction stories, that appeared in New Horizons, The Fantasist, Timeless Tales, The Singularity, New Realms, Alien Dimensions, and many other magazines; and in several anthologies, including People of the Book, Ink Stains, Zion's Fiction, and Apex Book of World Science Fiction. Her story "In the Moment" won second place in the 2009 Short Story Competition of the British Fantasy Society. Her fantasy novel A Tale of Three Cities was published in 2013, and her standalone novella "Dreaming the Dark" came out in 2017.
