The Salt Oracle

Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2026

by Lorraine Wilson

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Pub Date 6 Nov 2025 | Archive Date 2 Nov 2025

Rebellion | Solaris

Literary Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers | Sci Fi & Fantasy

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Description

It's been seventeen years since the internet crashed and left the world broken... Auli lives on the Bellwether, a floating college safe from the conflict of the mainland, where she studies the Oracle - an uncanny girl who channels dangerous ghosts and provides lost information about the world's seas. Her peaceful world is shattered when her beloved mentor, Boudain, is found dead. While most aboard believe it was due to natural causes, Auli uncovers hints that suggest he was not the benign leader he seemed - and that his death might be deliberate. Surrounded by people with their own motives and secrets, Auli doesn't know who to trust. Worse, the Oracle is attracting dangerous, mutating ghosts that threaten everyone aboard. With the Bellwether fracturing from internal and external pressures, she is forced to wrestle with a life-changing decision: save the Oracle or save the Bellwether - and all the lives that depend on it.

It's been seventeen years since the internet crashed and left the world broken... Auli lives on the Bellwether, a floating college safe from the conflict of the mainland, where she studies the...

Advance Praise

“The Salt Oracle is a brilliant story about hope, compassion, ghosts and the sea written with reckless beauty and a finger on the heart.” —Stewart Hotston, author of Project Hanuman and Chair of the BSFA

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9781837865741
PRICE	£18.99 (GBP)
PAGES	400

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Additional Information

Average rating from 16 members

Featured Reviews

Cathryn M, Reviewer

I absolutely love this authors books. She has a truly unique way of entwining the world we know and giving it a scientific, dystopian twist that is just so believable. The writing is beautifully atmospheric and eerie.

The Salt Oracle was no exception. Set in the same world as 'We are all ghosts in the forest' but with different characters. This book features a beautifully constructed world set after the internet crashed and all the tech ghosts are loose in the world infecting humans.

This book combines some great aspects that make it totally captivating. Moral issues around the Oracle, friendships and who you trust, corruption, murder and romance. Filled with a diversity of characters, everything about this book while outlandishly brilliant and unimaginable was also just so believable at the same time.

I loved the multi POV aspects of this book, especially the ones from 'the girl' that you can't quite align at the start but then grow to make sense.

I didnt want this one to end and could have happily continued to follow these characters further into the story.

So glad to have read this one.

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Emma @, Reviewer

I love how Lorraine Wilson writes. I was enamoured with We Are All Ghosts In The Forest, and that hasn’t changed with The Salt Oracle. This book was so interesting, and it felt so unique premise-wise.