In a world where words are power, there is nothing more dangerous than an unnamed thing.
Enter an epic world of ghosts and monsters, magical trains and nameless wonders in this gorgeous lyrical fantasy, perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke, The Starless Sea and the films of Guillermo del Toro.
When something fell from the something tree, all the words went away. And the world changed.
Monsters slipped from dreams. The land began to shift and ghosts wandered the world in trances. Only with the rise of the named and their committees―Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names―could humanity stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. Now, they build borders, shackle ghosts and hunt monsters. The nameless are to be fought, and feared.
One unnamed courier of the names committee travels aboard the Number Twelve train, assigning names to the people and things that need them. Her position on the train grants her safety in a world that otherwise fears her. But when she accidentally pulls a monster from a dream, and attacks by the nameless rock the Number Twelve, she is forced to flee. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the borders between realities, she sets out to look for her long-lost sister.
Her search for the truth of her own life opens the door to a revolutionary future―for the words she carries will reshape the world.
At once a love letter to the power of language and an exploration of its limits, The Naming Song is the perfect fantasy for anyone who's ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.
Genre: Fantasy
Enter an epic world of ghosts and monsters, magical trains and nameless wonders in this gorgeous lyrical fantasy, perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke, The Starless Sea and the films of Guillermo del Toro.
When something fell from the something tree, all the words went away. And the world changed.
Monsters slipped from dreams. The land began to shift and ghosts wandered the world in trances. Only with the rise of the named and their committees―Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names―could humanity stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. Now, they build borders, shackle ghosts and hunt monsters. The nameless are to be fought, and feared.
One unnamed courier of the names committee travels aboard the Number Twelve train, assigning names to the people and things that need them. Her position on the train grants her safety in a world that otherwise fears her. But when she accidentally pulls a monster from a dream, and attacks by the nameless rock the Number Twelve, she is forced to flee. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the borders between realities, she sets out to look for her long-lost sister.
Her search for the truth of her own life opens the door to a revolutionary future―for the words she carries will reshape the world.
At once a love letter to the power of language and an exploration of its limits, The Naming Song is the perfect fantasy for anyone who's ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.
Genre: Fantasy
Praise for this book
"At the heart of this brilliant, thrilling adventure is an exploration of the power of words to transform the way we see ourselves, our history, and our possible futures. The Naming Song understands the fundamental magic of language, and breathes that magic onto every page." - Holly Black
"With The Naming Song, Jedediah Berry offers a Genesis wrapped up in a Revelation-a mysterious, poetic, and invigorating post-apocalyptic adventure saga about how things can be reborn, and in some cases remade, after they have been undone. It's rare that a novel this substantial is also this strange and this fun." - Kevin Brockmeier
"A breathlessly enjoyable tale." - Cassandra Clare
"Berry creates both a familiar and unfamiliar landscape in a sweeping epic about the language and love between us, the humanity of the living and the dead, and the raw power of creation." - J R Dawson
"In Jedediah Berry's The Naming Song I perceive the simplicity and complexity of Richard Brautigan's Watermelon Sugar, a structure that could have been borrowed from Berry's own card game, The Family Arcana, and a nod to The Romance of the Rose. Still, it's wholly its own engaging creature that engenders wonder and suggests a new kind of fiction." - Jeffrey Ford
"The Naming Song is not just one of the best told fantasy novels of the last twenty-five years, it is a masterpiece of storytelling destined to be extolled as a classic." - Howard Andrew Jones
"Every writer, of course, must make magic out of words - but in The Naming Song Jedediah Berry makes strange and wonderful magic out of the absence of words. This book is a parade of delights and nightmares, written with the kind of incantatory precision that the truest spells are made of." - Kelly Link
"Deeply immersive, magnificently imagined, Jedediah Berry's The Naming Song is an epic tale of the fantastic, where language - quite literally - has the power to remake the world. This is a vast and sweeping wonder of a novel." - J M Miro
"The Naming Song is a wonder. A masterful, marvel-filled journey of language and ghosts, of monsters and meaning and mystery. This is a haunting, glorious train ride of a novel that feels both new and old at the same time, a creature of post-apocalyptic myth." - Erin Morgenstern
"An anti-totalitarian, post-apocalyptic fable featuring mystical theater trains, impossible monsters, and the awesome power of story? Sign me the heck up. If we can rise against injustice even half as boldly as 'the courier' and her friends, there might just be hope for humanity yet. Jedediah Berry has delivered a true epic, thrumming with life." - GennaRose Nethercott
"With The Naming Song, Jedediah Berry offers a Genesis wrapped up in a Revelation-a mysterious, poetic, and invigorating post-apocalyptic adventure saga about how things can be reborn, and in some cases remade, after they have been undone. It's rare that a novel this substantial is also this strange and this fun." - Kevin Brockmeier
"A breathlessly enjoyable tale." - Cassandra Clare
"Berry creates both a familiar and unfamiliar landscape in a sweeping epic about the language and love between us, the humanity of the living and the dead, and the raw power of creation." - J R Dawson
"In Jedediah Berry's The Naming Song I perceive the simplicity and complexity of Richard Brautigan's Watermelon Sugar, a structure that could have been borrowed from Berry's own card game, The Family Arcana, and a nod to The Romance of the Rose. Still, it's wholly its own engaging creature that engenders wonder and suggests a new kind of fiction." - Jeffrey Ford
"The Naming Song is not just one of the best told fantasy novels of the last twenty-five years, it is a masterpiece of storytelling destined to be extolled as a classic." - Howard Andrew Jones
"Every writer, of course, must make magic out of words - but in The Naming Song Jedediah Berry makes strange and wonderful magic out of the absence of words. This book is a parade of delights and nightmares, written with the kind of incantatory precision that the truest spells are made of." - Kelly Link
"Deeply immersive, magnificently imagined, Jedediah Berry's The Naming Song is an epic tale of the fantastic, where language - quite literally - has the power to remake the world. This is a vast and sweeping wonder of a novel." - J M Miro
"The Naming Song is a wonder. A masterful, marvel-filled journey of language and ghosts, of monsters and meaning and mystery. This is a haunting, glorious train ride of a novel that feels both new and old at the same time, a creature of post-apocalyptic myth." - Erin Morgenstern
"An anti-totalitarian, post-apocalyptic fable featuring mystical theater trains, impossible monsters, and the awesome power of story? Sign me the heck up. If we can rise against injustice even half as boldly as 'the courier' and her friends, there might just be hope for humanity yet. Jedediah Berry has delivered a true epic, thrumming with life." - GennaRose Nethercott
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