The Edge of Space-Time: PREORDER + COVER REVEAL!
Coming 4/7/2026: The universe, reimagined!
Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie
My publisher says it’s a “fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos.” Indeed, I am the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos AND I have written another book!
The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie is coming from Pantheon Books on April 7, 2026 in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. Available now for preorder!
Please preorder! Preorders help (read on for why). Oh you want to know what it’s about? More on that after I show off the cover one more time!
What’s it about?
The cosmic dream boogie, baby! Our universe and the way we make meaning of it — through science, through art — no matter our circumstances. At its best, physics is a kind of poetry. There’s something enormous gorgeous about looking at the universe from the edge of what we know and everything that there is.
Inspired by the poetry, literature, film, and music that have shaped me as a scientist, The Edge of Space-Time is about the way physics, astronomy, and cosmology offer each of us – not just scientists – a powerful and important perspective on the world around us. I wrote The Edge of Space-Time because I wanted to give readers a feel for the rich experience that comes with seeing the world through the lens of particles, space, and time.
Although it’s about the fundamental nature of the universe, The Edge of Space-Time starts not with the Big Bang, but instead with a discussion about the power of metaphor in poetry. What are the abiding metaphors that shape us? Among them — our star stories. Our curiosity about the universe is part of what makes us, us.
The Edge of Space-Time is an invitation: keep in touch with our cosmic origin story. Stay curious because that is part of what it means to be human. Throughout the book I draw from pop culture, the arts, and the humanities – think Sun Ra, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Star Trek, Big K.R.I.T., Bisa Butler, Zhou Kingdom philosophers, and Langston Hughes – to help readers connect with big ideas in physics like the fact of s p a c e, the unexpected curvature of space-time, and the true quantum nature of my favorite fruit.
In The Edge of Space-Time, you will meet the quantum cat that is both dead and alive, learn the difference between dark matter and dark energy, explore the inner workings of black holes, investigate the possibility of a unified theory of quantum gravity, and map out the meeting place of the unimaginably vast with the confoundingly small, from the particle horizon and down to the tiniest (and very queer) neutrino. There’s some astrophotography shots too, with a discussion about how easy it is to get into that yourself!
People who read The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred might be wondering if this is basically the same book. No. Same universe, very different book. While The Disordered Cosmos was a holistic look at the doing of particle physics and cosmology using personal essay, The Edge of Space-Time is a meditation on what makes the universe all the things it is and why everyone should get lost, occasionally, in the question of how it all comes together and what it all means. The two books actually could be read — quite happily — as a pair!
Who is it for?
Literally everyone. For everyone who felt physics wasn’t for them. For the math anxious. For people who see whole universes in Langston Hughes poems. For the non-binary kids who didn’t know the neutrino was kinda like them. For the queer Trekkies who loved Culber and Stamets (yes, they make an appearance). For Alice in Wonderland fans, and people who love poetry, whether it’s Missy Elliott’s genius lyrics or T.S. Eliot’s meditations on time. For anyone who is curious about cosmology but maybe felt like the world of physics didn’t see them. For anyone who is curious about the universe, full stop. Literally everyone, ages “I can read or someone will read to me” up to infinity.
Is now the time for a book about abstract ideas?
Look, fam. Shit is fucked. And yes, the abstract still matters. In this precarious moment, holding onto our wonder is more important than ever. The cosmos has added meaning to our lives and struggles for millennia, and it has motivated us to dream. And right now, we need to dream big.
The Edge of Space-Time also makes the case for why learning to think in the abstract ways that metaphors and quantum physics teach us to is an important part of being democratically engaged. Practicing thinking with abstraction prepares us to critically analyze information and the choices before us.
When I started writing The Edge of Space-Time, I had no idea I’d be releasing it into the anti-science policy environment we are now experiencing here in the U.S. But I knew already that I needed to make the case for the science that I love and why it belongs to all of us. I thought the best way to do this was to write a book that took me back to my scientific roots: the fundamental questions at the heart of cosmology. What is space? What is time? What does it mean that light is both a wave and a particle?
There are still so many unanswered questions about our universe, and we are not always encouraged to be in conversation with our curiosity about them. This book is a chance to think about space travel, with the words of Nikki Giovanni at your side. To recognize, as Natasha Trethewey and Robert Frost did, the foundational importance of metaphor to everything we do – from politics to quantum field theory. And it is an opportunity for every reader to understand what the heck a physicist means when they say things like “quantum field theory.”
Why you should preorder TODAY!
Please preorder my book now if you can afford to and the format you want is available (I promise an audiobook IS coming across all audiobook platforms). Please please please. Preorders help a book succeed not just on release day but also beyond. My number one choice is that you preorder from your local brick and mortar — if they don’t have an online presence, you can call them. I love indie bookstores!! You can also use any of the links that my publisher provides you.
As novelist Charlie Jane Anders says, “Pre-ordering Books Makes You More of a Citizen of Literature.” When you preorder The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie, you are signaling to my publisher and booksellers that this is a book they should be excited about. When you ask your library to get a copy, you’re signaling this is literature the librarians should be paying attention to.
As Charlie points out, preorders are “a gift that you are buying for your future self.” I love randomly getting a book in the mail or a notification about a pick-up for a book that I had forgotten I’d bought months before. It’s like a birthday gift in April! I also love Charlie’s note about the inherent futurism at work: “Pre-ordering is inherently a hopeful, forward-looking action that declares that we will survive, and there will be wonderful books for us to read when we do.”
Helpfully, if you’re unsure how to preorder, Charlie has got you covered — with a reminder to preorder her novel about a young trans witch, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, which is coming out next month!
I want to help!
Awesome. Thank you! After you preorder, please forward this email to everyone you know, and post a link to it with #EdgeOfSpaceTime on your socials and in your group chats. Or share a link directly to my book’s page. Follow me on Instagram and Bluesky and post about the book! And if you’re not a subscriber to this newsletter (but somehow read this far down, wow!), please subscribe.
In the coming months, I’ll be announcing Spring 2026 book tour details, and information about editions specifically for readers outside the US/Canada (and if you want it translated into another language, please say so in public!). If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe to this newsletter — just fill in the form here and confirm with the email Buttondown sends you!
And don’t forget to preorder and tell your local library to preorder too.
