Cover of My Real Children
Queer Science FictionAlternate History

My Real Children

by

  • 2001 first published
  • 344 pages
  • ★ 4.2 (5 ratings)
  • 15 editions
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Jo Walton's My Real Children (2001) is a queer science fiction and alternate history novel. Readers will find themes of memory in old age, Women, Uncertainty and nuclear warfare.

Open Library readers give it an average of 4.2 out of 5 from 5 ratings, and 13 more have it on their want-to-read list. It has been published in 15 editions across 6 languages.

It runs to roughly 344 pages — 6–7 hours of reading at an average pace.

About My Real Children

It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know-what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead. She remembers the bomb that killed President Kennedy in 1963, and she remembers Kennedy in 1964, declining to run again after the nuclear exchange that took out Miami and Kiev. Her childhood, her years at Oxford during the Second World War, those were solid things. But after that, did she marry Mark or not? Did her friends all call her Trish, or Pat? Had she been a housewife who escaped a terrible marriage after her children were grown, or a successful travel writer with homes in Britain and Italy? And the moon outside her window: does it host a benign research station, or a command post bristling with nuclear missiles?
Description from Open Library

Awards & lists

Themes, setting & tropes

Genres

Subjects

  • Memory in old age
  • Women
  • Identity, Psychology
  • Uncertainty
  • Nuclear warfare
  • Science fiction
  • Alternative history
  • Human relations - Fiction
  • Women - Fiction
  • Aged - Fiction
  • Self-perception - Fiction
  • Memory - Fiction
  • Imaginary histories
  • LGBTQ novels
  • Stonewall Book Awards
  • Interpersonal relations

Publisher

Quick answers

Who wrote My Real Children?

My Real Children was written by Jo Walton and first published in 2001.

What genre is My Real Children?

It is usually shelved as Queer Science Fiction and Alternate History.

How long is My Real Children?

The median edition has 344 pages, about 6–7 hours of reading at 250 words per minute.

What books are similar to My Real Children?

Readers who like it often enjoy Swastika Night, Darwinia and Six of Crows.

More by Jo Walton

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