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For the First Time, Again
For the First Time, Again
Feb 14, 2026 7:14 PM

Author:Sylvain Neuvel

For the First Time, Again

Discover history's biggest secret . . .

For millennia an unbroken line of alien mothers and daughters have secretly been shepherding human technology towards the stars.

Twelve-year-old Aster is the last of this line.

But the loss of her mother in early life means she knows nothing of her alien heritage - believing she is just an ordinary young girl.

Not only is she about to discover how wrong she is - but she'll also learn she's not the only alien on Earth: others are here to stop her.

Yet with revelation comes recovery.

Now Aster has a purpose.

Her life, the future of her species

and that of all life on Earth is at stake.

She's history's biggest secret.

But can she save the future?

'Alt-history with a difference' GUARDIAN

'There's real cleverness at work here' THE TIMES

Reviews

Praise for Take Them To The Stars series

—— -

Sylvain Neuvel proves once again he deserves the title of the hottest new SF writer of the 21st century

—— Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of The Oppenheimer Alternative

Series fans and readers of speculative thrillers built around actual historical events will eagerly anticipate book three.

—— Booklist

...[T]he stakes of this series have risen exponentially

—— Tor.com

Praise for Sylvain Neuvel

—— -

It's fascinating to see how Neuvel weaves together fact and fiction . . . a blast. Seriously clever

—— SFX

An alt-history with a difference. Traces the true story of the development of rocket science but adds an alien-conspiracy-theory edge . . . Good fun

—— Guardian

Wry narration, wired action . . . Fans of alternate history and intelligent sci-fi will love this

—— Publishers Weekly

Beautifully written, Dani Shapiro explores time, memory and our human interconnectedness to create a moving portrayal of the ripple effect one event and one person's actions can have on many lives

—— Woman's Weekly

Beautiful... a family saga, but a book about destiny too, the unavoidable push and pull of choice and chance

—— Francesca Steele , i News

Lyrical and propulsive . . . hard to put down

—— Oprah Daily

Masterful and poignant

—— Today Show US

Wise, deeply perceptive, suffused with light

—— CLAIRE MESSUD

Signal Fires is an urgent and compassionate meditation on memory, time, and space. In Shapiro's elegant convergence of narrative threads, she creates a world that's as wrenching as it is wondrous

—— RUTH OZEKI

A subtle, compelling and expansive book about family, love and the devastating power of secrets. I love the way Shapiro writes relationships, the ambition of having so many concurrent narratives and the deft way she draws her characters.

—— NELL FRIZZELL

Beautifully composed

—— New York Journal of Books

Shapiro's characters' interweaving stories grapple with the ways that guilt festers when it's not dealt with - and, ultimately, the unexpected paths that can lead to healing and redemption

—— Time

A powerful work that delves into the consequences of a long-hidden lie . . . Shapiro's novel offers the comfort of a view from the stars

—— Washington Post

Gripping from the start... beautifully written, Shapiro explores time, memory and our human interconnectedness to create a tender, moving portrayal of the ripple effect one event and on person's actions can have on many lives

—— Woman & Home *Book of the Month*

The queen of family secrets

—— BookPage

What a treat. I don't know of anyone who writes about family with the same generous understanding

—— Gary Shteyngart

Gripping, unexpected and beautiful

—— Jamie Lee Curtis

Wears its philosophical intentions on its sleeve; well-developed characters and their interesting careers seal the deal.

—— Kirkus

The wisdom and beauty in these seamlessly-braided narratives form a singular emotional experience for the reader that is both immediate and everlasting.

—— Simon Van Booy

A beautiful exploration of the connections between two families and the reverberations from a teenager's lie...Shapiro imagines in luminous prose how each of the characters' lives might have gone if things had turned out differently...an intriguing meditation

—— Publishers Weekly

Shapiro writes with compassion and a deep understanding of the damage that secrets wreak

—— Library Journal

Shapiro returns...with a beautiful exploration of the connections between two families and the reverberations from a teenager's lie... Shapiro imagines in luminous prose how each of the characters' lives might have gone if things had turned out differently. It's an intriguing meditation.

—— Publishers Weekly

Shapiro delivers keen perceptions about family dynamics via fictional characters that exude a rare combination of substance and delicacy. Stunning in depth and breadth, this luminous examination of loss and acceptance, furtiveness and reliability, abandonment and friendship ultimately blazes with profound revelations

—— Booklist

Gorgeous

—— BookPage

Lyrical and sharp

—— i

Signal Fires is an exquisite portrait of two families, and a testament to the human capacity to experience love and loss. With wry tenderness it shows how we are all connected through time in ways that are at once beautiful, mysterious, profound and full of hope.

—— Mummy Pages

A book about desire and about love, about where these emotions meet and part and sometimes interlace in inescapable ways. But it is about so much more: these characters, for instance, painted by Warrell's uniquely masterful brush so that even in small moments they seem entirely whole, entirely alive...a classic in the making.

—— Brian Castleberry, author of Nine Shiny Objects

Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm,' proclaimed Jelly Roll Morton, and Warrell plays her exceptional first novel with plenty of rhythm and tenderness, delivered in brisk, mordantly gorgeous language that has its own natural flow.... A highly recommended story of love and life that makes beautiful music.

—— Library Journal (starred review)

A capacious and sweeping telling in which writing about the past is a way of also staring dead on at the present.

—— Natasha Trethewey, author of NATIVE GUARD

Victory City stands out as one of the year's literary highlights... that feels like an instant classic.

—— Bea Carvalho, Head of Fiction at Waterstones

Rushdie is an assured storyteller at the height of his powers, revealing once again how important India is as a fount of his imagination.

—— Conversation

Victory City is one of Rushdie's very best novels. It is also a luminous, italicised, vibrant reminder of the possibilities of free expression and of the untrammelled imagination. In this instance, the medium is indeed the message.

—— Tortoise Media

Victory City can, in many ways, be read as an entertaining jaunt through Indian history, though it is history through the kaleidoscopic and sweeping lens of a fairy tale... this brilliantly magical tale.

—— Irish Independent

This sweeping, intricately crafted fairy tale is underscored by very human characters and Rushdie's signature wit.

—— Culture Whisper, *Books to Look Out For 2023*

A grand entertainment, in a tale with many strands, by an ascended master of modern legends.

—— Kirkus Review

Rushdie's magical style unfurls wonders.

—— Washington Post

Rushdie's Victory City is another fabulous novel set in his native India... He's a master who never forgets that the main goal of a storyteller is to entertain rather than educate or pontificate.

—— New York Journal of Books

Rushdie is, above all else...one of the most powerful defenders of story we have... Victory City is a victory for Rushdie - and for every reader who enters its gates.

—— Harper's Bazaar

Rushdie succeeds in creating a kind of incantatory prose that befits the fabulist nature of the story... he can enchant readers like few other writers.

—— Literary Review

This is a man at his full-strength, high-tar best - with his deeply humane worldview, his brilliance at set-pieces and, above all, the thrilling wildness of his imagination on irresistible display.

—— Reader's Digest

With its carousel of shifting politics and history, Victory City is Rushdie's most textured and triumphant wonder tale yet.

—— Hindu

Utterly enchanting.

—— Eastern Eye

Rushdie's return to magic, myth, and India's ancient stories is dazzling. With mercurial prose and vivid renderings, Rushdie never loses us in Victory City's convolutions, but instead builds our trust to travail the many grand events of Pampa's imagined empire.

—— Esquire

A rich, dramatic saga... The many moments of comedy...show Salman Rushdie's storytelling skills and his endearing sense of playfulness... the main feeling the reader gets is of a storyteller enjoying himself.

—— Tablet, *Novel of the Week*

Rushdie is an expert at mixology; he's the DJ Shadow of text with references and allusions to high and low culture from Finnegans Wake to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... a well-told tale that gets bums on seats.

—— National

There's a magical thread of storytelling running through the veins of each character we meet in this book... a joy to read.

—— UK Press Syndication

A work of great imagination... In Victory City the power of the written word and of the storyteller remain triumphant.

—— NB

Rushdie’s sheer love of fiction is irrepressible.

—— Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

A wonderfully entertaining literary hybrid

—— The Times, *Books of the Year*

Victory City is Salman Rushdie at his imaginative best… sweeping the reader on a journey that feels epic in a mere 320 pages

—— i, *Books of the Year*
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