©2025 Fable Group Inc.
3.0 

The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers

By Jeremy Packert Burke
The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers by Jeremy Packert Burke digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers is a Tor.com original science fiction story from Jeremy Packert Burke.

The world doesn't make sense. All rain has moved indoors--wrecking houses from the inside out while the skies remain cloudless. With ever greater devotion, people worship giant, inert, humanoid bodies as gods as civilization falls apart.

Lucy has never been religious, but her brother becomes more and more sucked into the church. She has no way to properly mourn him after his untimely death. Now, a year later, with the help of her best friend Carve, who was once himself a believer, she will travel south on a makeshift pilgrimage, trying to find peace and some better means of understanding the world.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download the free Fable app

app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities
app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

5 Reviews

3.0
“This is a lonely, homesick story that almost brought me to tears. Reminded me in some ways of Station Eleven -- the intrusion of a common, human thing like grief onto a world that has utterly changed, and how we deal with it. Very poignant.”
“I felt sure I'd love this from the title alone and I was not wrong.”
“English Review Below. جذبتني نبذة هذه القصة القصيرة الخيالية، والتي تدور في عالم بدأت الأمطار تهطل فيه داخل المنازل وليس خارجها. أحيانا يكون المطر مفاجئا بعاصفة رعدية ويقتل سكان المنزل قبل أن تتاح لهم فرصة الهروب، وأحيانا يبدأ المطر ببطء ويمنحهم فرصة للهرب من منزل لم يعد قابلا للسكن وسيظل غارقا بالماء. الحبكة نفسها مثيرة للاهتمام، ولكنني وجدت نفسي غير مهتمة للتنفيذ نفسه، فلم أكره القصة ولكنني لم أحبها أيضا، وظهور الآلهة والديانة الجديدة والشخصية الرئيسية التائهة كلها أشياء لم تثر اهتمامي للأسف. القصة متاحة مجانا لمن يود قراءتها: https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/twenty-three-strangers-jeremy-packert-burke/ I was intrigued by the synopsis of this short story, which is simply put, one day the rain started falling inside the houses not outside, sometimes it would be sudden with thunder and storming intensity, killing the people and demolishing their homes, other times it would start slowly, giving people a chance to escape that home which will be no longer fit to be lived in. It was interesting, but I found myself lukewarm towards the story, I didn't hate but I didn't love it either, the whole gods and religion and the lost main character didn't intrigue me enough to like this story beyond that interesting synopsis. If it sounds like something you'd like, you can find it for free on Tor's Website: https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/twenty-three-strangers-jeremy-packert-burke/”

About Jeremy Packert Burke

Jeremy Packert Burke is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop and an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. They have had stories in the Indiana Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, and Hayden's Ferry Review, among other places.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!
Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB