Guest post written by author Alaya Dawn Johnson
Alaya Dawn Johnson’s first novel for young adults, The Summer Prince, received three starred reviews, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. She is also the author of Love Is the Drug. She grew up in Washington, DC, attended Columbia University, and now lives in New York City. The Library of Broken Worlds is out now.
Alaya Dawn Johnson pens a guest post to celebrate the release of The Library of Broken Worlds by exploring some of her favourite elements of worldbuilding within the book.
1. Library City
Library City operates on the principal of locality, with a relaxed relationship to time (the “on time is late” crowd would be given baffled looks here). In theory, it’s possible to live there without any money or resources at all, because the malleable AI that live in the soil itself – “broonies”—will provide food and shelter and clothing for anyone who asks. It is divided into four quadrants, each dominated by one of the four material gods who live in the Library: Tenehet, the wisest; Iemaja, the youngest; Mahue’e, the angriest; and Old Coyote, the bloodiest. At the center of the quadrants is the Temple Precinct, home to the four temples of the material gods, and the Retreat, where the librarians—and Freida—make their home. The Library is also the home to the preeminent universities in the human universe. In the surrounding quadrants, millions of people, both long-term residents and transients, live in enclaves separated by forests and grasslands and lakes. From its founding five hundred years before as the solution to a great war that had nearly destroyed humanity, it was meant to be a city of peace, made for slowness and deliberate thought, designed to change with time and the necessities (and whims) of its inhabitants—human and AI alike.
2. The Grubs
The Library’s elegant nature-harmonized urban landscape rests upon a honeycomb, a warren of tunnels carved by the gods’ imaginings. But material deities are not the only ones building tunnels beneath the city. The grubs have been there since the founding as well, hard-caparisoned pill bugs of monstrous size, with great camera-filled mouths, which they use both to record and to project what they have recorded. These creatures were bio-engineered to provide constant surveillance in Library City, and you’ll certainly find their green-and-black bodies blending in everywhere once you start to look. But they’ve also evolved. They live in autonomous tribes beneath the Library, digging their own tunnels, which Freida uses to gain her illicit access to the tunnels of the gods. Some of them still record and transmit human activities, but they have their own thoughts and culture. Centuries ago, others escaped into the desert surrounding the Library, and only rumors whisper what those distant cousins do at the lonely graves of past librarians.
3. Tenehet Fruit
Throughout the year, but especially during the first dry season, which they call the dust, fruits that no one has ever seen before grow where they please in Library City. Imagine walking through your favorite of the thousand gardens of the Tenehet quadrant, only to come across a thick purple vine, laden with ripe blue and gold globes. They smell of lemon, violet, honey and honeysuckle and things only the broonies would know. That’s the other name for these unique delicacies, “broonie fruits,” after the malleable, generative AI that induce them to grow each year, so that everyone in Library City might eat from the earth for free and no one goes hungry. But you’ll have to take a bite to figure out if it’s nutritious or a trip–or both!
4. The Spiral
Library City is big—a hundred-kilometer diameter circle in the middle of a great candy-colored desert (the worn-away remains of the crystals of the gods). Not to mention the lakes and forests and hills. So how do people get around? For out-of-the-way jaunts you can use crawlers or air cars. But for the most common destinations, there’s the spiral. Imagine a giant lazy river, invisible, floating at cloud-level above the city. Inside of it, you’re about as buoyant as you would be in water, though it’s easier to move through. If you need to get somewhere, you can either go the slow way, and let the spiral move you (the trip takes six hours from the outer ring to the inner heart) or you can pay with one naiad blue shard for each ring you’d like to jump. Plenty of people decide to go the long way around, though. Inside the spiral are delicious food vendors and—famously—Zell’s Tenehet fruit beer stand. You might have to go spiral hunting for him with your pals, though—unlike some vendors, he never pays to stay anchored in one place.
5. Awilu Mourning Curry
The Awilu are the most ancient human civilization, the ones who were born in the lush earth of what became the Sahara and launched themselves into the stars before the rest of humanity had even known where to look. Now that they’ve returned and brought their ancient culture—and obscenely powerful technology—back with them, the rest of humanity has been irrevocably changed. The Awilu are peacekeepers, the main founders of the Library, and the power behind Freida’s existence. But though she looks like them, what little she knows of their culture comes from Nadi, her parent, and the Head Librarian. One day, Nadi explains to Freida one of the Awilu’s sacred culinary traditions:
“In my family, we had a tradition of snail curry at funeral feasts.”
I wrinkled my nose. How old was I? Eighteen in my imagination. Eight, maybe nine, in memory. “Sounds terrible. At least you Awilu old families don’t ever die.”
Ze smiled softly. I didn’t know about zir birth parent in the virtual afterlife, about zir partner, dead without a viable war chest. I was a cruel, ignorant child. Ze just put zir cold hands on my head and smiled. “We do sometimes,” ze said, “when we get around to it.”
“But curried snails? I’ve never seen you eat animals.”
“We don’t, normally. These are an exception. You fry them first, in coconut and clarified milk fat. And the curry has twenty-seven ingredients, which is . . .”
“A nine of three!” I said, pleased. “Three cubed or nine triplets.”
Ze nodded. “It’s a good number. And it’s a death number. A green curry with twenty-seven ingredients and nine snails.”
“Is it good? Can I try it?”
“It’s one of the great culinary achievements of my culture. But I hope you won’t try it for a very, very long time, love.”
“Why not?”
What a cruel, ignorant child. Ze hesitated. “It doesn’t have any salt.”
