***READERS ARE LOVINGHOMEBOUND***
‘Beautiful and heartfelt... A masterpiece’
‘Intricate, compelling and completely absorbing… heartbreaking, uplifting, intensely moving’
‘Beautifully written… a novel of found family, acceptance, loneliness and belonging’
‘Breathtaking… so different’
‘So heart-achingly good’
‘Beautiful and mysterious’
’Nobody should miss this immersive and vulnerable debut’
‘The Long Way to a Small Angry PlanetmeetsTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’
‘Complex, inter-branching and thought-provoking’
’Beautifully ambitious... drifts through time, place and genre with real confidence’
‘Unlike anything you have read before’
‘For fans of Sea of Tranquillity and Migrations’
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
* Guardian Book of the Day * New Scientist Best New Science Fiction 2026 *
Six hundred years. Five interlocking lives. One computer game.
And the many paths that can lead us home.
1983: a grieving teenager is left a game to complete.
2083: a scientist makes a radical discovery about the human spirit.
2586: a sea captain navigates the perils of a flooded world.
Meanwhile: an astronaut is on a rescue mission in deep space.
How do they connect? The puzzle leads back to that teenager. What she is coding will outlast her by centuries, but it will shape the lives of these four pioneering women across centuries, vast oceans and far-distant planets. It will also introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew.
Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a wild and precarious sea adventure, a space odyssey. As it slips through time, grief, storytelling, found family, it journeys deep into humanity’s future and capacity for love.
‘A Cloud Atlas-like puzzle box’ GUARDIAN
‘A work of joyous and serious invention’ KALIANE BRADLEY
‘Gripping... hauntingly beautiful’ MADELINE MILLER
‘A big, bold, ecstatic world – full of heart and wonder’ RUTH OZEKI
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘Beautiful and heartfelt... A masterpiece’
‘Intricate, compelling and completely absorbing… heartbreaking, uplifting, intensely moving’
‘Beautifully written… a novel of found family, acceptance, loneliness and belonging’
‘Breathtaking… so different’
‘So heart-achingly good’
‘Beautiful and mysterious’
’Nobody should miss this immersive and vulnerable debut’
‘The Long Way to a Small Angry PlanetmeetsTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’
‘Complex, inter-branching and thought-provoking’
’Beautifully ambitious... drifts through time, place and genre with real confidence’
‘Unlike anything you have read before’
‘For fans of Sea of Tranquillity and Migrations’
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
* Guardian Book of the Day * New Scientist Best New Science Fiction 2026 *
Six hundred years. Five interlocking lives. One computer game.
And the many paths that can lead us home.
1983: a grieving teenager is left a game to complete.
2083: a scientist makes a radical discovery about the human spirit.
2586: a sea captain navigates the perils of a flooded world.
Meanwhile: an astronaut is on a rescue mission in deep space.
How do they connect? The puzzle leads back to that teenager. What she is coding will outlast her by centuries, but it will shape the lives of these four pioneering women across centuries, vast oceans and far-distant planets. It will also introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew.
Homebound is a coming out and coming-of-age story, a wild and precarious sea adventure, a space odyssey. As it slips through time, grief, storytelling, found family, it journeys deep into humanity’s future and capacity for love.
‘A Cloud Atlas-like puzzle box’ GUARDIAN
‘A work of joyous and serious invention’ KALIANE BRADLEY
‘Gripping... hauntingly beautiful’ MADELINE MILLER
‘A big, bold, ecstatic world – full of heart and wonder’ RUTH OZEKI
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A sparkling novel, a work of joyous and serious invention that moves fluidly between forms - text-based computer game, coming-of-age story, sea adventure - that is also profoundly attentive to the concept of home as something portable, created by family (born and chosen), storytelling and solidarity." - Kaliane Bradley
"Homebound's multiple narratives gloriously span centuries into the future to chart the voyages people take to find connection and community. Portia Elan's ingenious novel is a puzzle-story, a nostalgic ode to 80s video games and punk rock, and a speculative look into the ways technology has reshaped longing. You need to read it!" - Kevin Chong
"A fascinatingly plausible and atmospheric story of a future shaped by tech and love intertwined." - Emma Donoghue
"What a pleasure it was to read this book. Homebound's radiant heart and the sure-footed clarity of Elan's prose seduced me from the first page. It's the kind of scope and pleasure that, forgive me for using the shorthand of comparison,reminds me of the novels of Emily St. John Mandel and Daniel Mason." - Kelly Link
"Homebound is a joy - at once a gripping mystery that confidently spans centuries, and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human. Inventive and gritty, powerful and clear-eyed, it kept me up all night!" - Madeline Miller
"Homebound is the most original and arresting novel I've read in a very long time. Elan has created a century-spanning epic that's also an utterly intimate story of love, loss, and found family. What a joy; what a marvel." - Anna North
"Homebound is a big, bold, ecstatic world - full of heart and wonder - where stories weave through time to connect us, and our faith in each other makes us human." - Ruth Ozeki
"Inventive and full of feeling. New insight into queerness and computer games unlocked." - Maggie Thrash
"A novel to get lost in, Homebound is deeply felt, deftly crafted and beautifully written. A story of friendship and family, of hope and invention and love. An inspiring debut." - Charles Yu
"Homebound's multiple narratives gloriously span centuries into the future to chart the voyages people take to find connection and community. Portia Elan's ingenious novel is a puzzle-story, a nostalgic ode to 80s video games and punk rock, and a speculative look into the ways technology has reshaped longing. You need to read it!" - Kevin Chong
"A fascinatingly plausible and atmospheric story of a future shaped by tech and love intertwined." - Emma Donoghue
"What a pleasure it was to read this book. Homebound's radiant heart and the sure-footed clarity of Elan's prose seduced me from the first page. It's the kind of scope and pleasure that, forgive me for using the shorthand of comparison,reminds me of the novels of Emily St. John Mandel and Daniel Mason." - Kelly Link
"Homebound is a joy - at once a gripping mystery that confidently spans centuries, and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human. Inventive and gritty, powerful and clear-eyed, it kept me up all night!" - Madeline Miller
"Homebound is the most original and arresting novel I've read in a very long time. Elan has created a century-spanning epic that's also an utterly intimate story of love, loss, and found family. What a joy; what a marvel." - Anna North
"Homebound is a big, bold, ecstatic world - full of heart and wonder - where stories weave through time to connect us, and our faith in each other makes us human." - Ruth Ozeki
"Inventive and full of feeling. New insight into queerness and computer games unlocked." - Maggie Thrash
"A novel to get lost in, Homebound is deeply felt, deftly crafted and beautifully written. A story of friendship and family, of hope and invention and love. An inspiring debut." - Charles Yu
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Used availability for Portia Elan's Homebound