Inventing Memory

A one-of-a-kind novel, like nothing you've ever read, Inventing Memory is a stunning blend of fantasy and reality, exposing the secret links between the mythic, the mundane, and the timeless mysteries of the human heart. Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer--until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Queen of Dawn . . . Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation on "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a long relationship that ended abruptly, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment . . . Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives. Or maybe not.

ANNE HARRIS won the 1999 Spectrum Award for her novel Accidental Creatures. She lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

"A beautifully written story featuring a wonderfully complex world of mystery and myth. It pulled me in from the first sentence. Anne Harris is definitely a writer to watch."
--Sarah Zettel on Inventing Memory

"Anne Harris brings an ancient world to life in Inventing Memory. She captures the fluidity and mystery of myth and identity. Highly recommended."
--Kate Elliott

"How do we find the lost path to the cosmic feminine? Part fantasy, part technothriller, Inventing Memory brings the goddess back to life--in a way that will surprise and delight readers."
--Patricia Monaghan, author of The Book of Goddesses and Heroines and The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog, on Inventing Memory

"History, Mystery, Betrayal, and Love."
--Kathe Koja on Inventing Memory

"An attractively fresh voice that I found both charming and compelling; the whole conception is original and strong. Good work!"
--Suzy McKee Charnas on Inventing Memory

"Anne Harris' book Inventing Memory is a smoothly-crafted, deeply subversive text at play in the fields of cyberrealism that challenges some cherished assumptions of popular in a unique and ultimately nourishing story that affirms the power of the human imagination to shape the future in new and better ways."
--Susan Matthews

"Harris makes questing for the inner goddess look like child's play in this intriguing . . . mix of SF, romance and feminist fantasy rooted in ancient Sumerian myth."
--Publishers Weekly on
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"The sections set in ancient Sumer were particularly well done, and there are a couple of nifty surprises as well."
--Chronicle on Inventing Memory

"There's sufficient speculation and futuristic detailing here to adequately background a deeply human story that hints at transhuman processes of order amid randomness."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Nature of Smoke

"Harris has an excellent grasp of the intricate plotting necessary for the style, and is able to juggle the large cast and multiple points of view with a great deal of skill. The science is plausible, well articulated, and the vision that drives it is both unusual and believably human." --Wavelengths on The Nature of Smoke