Thurava of Astrava is intended to become a herder, a most honored position for her dwindling community that clings to life on the banks of the Najimov, the river that’s the lifeblood of the high desert. But the Glass City on the horizon threatens the delicate balance the Astravans have managed to hold on to for centuries, polluting the air and water as the city grows bigger and bigger. The Glass City’s clockwork liaisons offer to bring the Astravans into the Glass City’s walls, but they will have to give up their ways and their precious herds to do so. Thurava must decide who she is without her animals, using the stars as her guide, putting herself on a collision course with the secrets the Glass City holds dear.
Reviewer Jake Casella Brookins for Locus Magazine calls it “well-crafted” with “a pleasant resonance with Le Guin’s shorter fiction in the novella’s gentle anthropological approach.”
Read the full review
Reviewer Paul Weimer for Nerds of a Feather calls it “An unflinching science fiction and environmental fable.”
Read the review — It also made their 2025 Award Recommendation Reading List.
Advance Praise:
“Lauren C. Teffeau’s A Hunger with No Name is a powerful story of survival—personal, ecological, and cultural—in the presence of overwhelming technological power. The textures and politics of Teffeau’s world are so finely wrought, the relationships so carefully crafted, that I could almost taste the starlight and feel every connection and disconnection. A powerful and important story filled with mystery and heart.”
—Fran Wilde, Nebula-winning author of Updraft and the Gemworld series
“A heartfelt coming of age story about a girl made of starways and ancient stories who must decide what matters when her people and their way of life face annihilation. A reminder to us all of what it means to be human and in community and how far one girl will go to save her world. A thought-provoking meditation on what is lost and what is gained when we rely on technology to save us.”
—New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse
“A Hunger With No Name is thought provoking, with a rich mythic texture that delights, even as it disturbs. You’ll find yourself musing over the implications of Thurava’s journey long after you read the final page.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jane Lindskold
“A powerful environmental fable with a headstrong heroine, Teffeau’s tale of a nomadic desert people forced into a high-tech city offers a glimpse into a unique fantasy world, and a testimony to the crucial cultural impact of storytelling.”
—Sarena Ulibarri, author of Another Life
“In A Hunger with No Name, Teffeau navigates the weave of mythology with respect for the indirect wisdom it conveys. She faces hard truths of resource stripping with an unflinching eye that anyone living in a water-scarce environment will recognize, and with an equally unflinching hope.”
—Sara A. Mueller, award-winning author of The Bone Orchard
About the Author:
Lauren C. Teffeau is a speculative fiction writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose work focuses on environmental issues, examines the role of technology in our lives, and centers women’s voices through fantastical adventures and immersive worlds. Her novella A Hunger with No Name was published by the University of Tampa Press in 2024. Named a definitive work of climate fiction by Grist, her novel Implanted (2018, Angry Robot) was a finalist for the 2019 Compton Crook award for best first SF/F/H novel. She’s had over twenty short stories appear in venues like After Dinner Conversation, Sunday Morning Transport, DreamForge Magazine, and the Stoker Award-nominated Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women in Horror.
