Tag: Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead

SFF, Short stories

Year’s Best Aotearoa SFF

OJ

I have a new story out! Well, an old story. “Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead,” originally published in The Dark, has been reprinted in the Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy, Volume 3 from Paper Road Press. That’s a mouthful of a title, I know, but the series itself is great. I’ve been lucky enough to have a story in each of the three volumes of the past three years, and it’s fantastic to be sharing page space with so many of the other speculative writers living in New Zealand.

So much credit should go to Paper Road Press here. It’s a small publisher in Wellington, New Zealand, and it is doing more than any other NZ publisher to support speculative fiction by Kiwi writers. There was no regular speculative anthology series here (that I’m aware of, at least) before Paper Road started putting them out, and each anthology has been beautifully curated and presented. I imagine writers living in countries like the US and the UK experience this sort of thing regularly, but we’re a small country with an even smaller publishing industry, and books like this really matter to us.

So thanks, Paper Road Press! I really appreciate your work.

Horror, SFF, Short stories

YBHH: Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead

OJ

I have a new (old) story out! “Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead” has been reprinted in the Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, volume 6, from Red Room Press. The story was originally published in The Dark.

This is the second time I’ve had a story in YBHH, and I’m grateful to the editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax; I remember them making it plain that people shouldn’t overthink whether their story is “hardcore” or not before submitting. It’s what encourages me to send stuff into them, because honestly? “Otto Hahn” is a very dark and deeply grim little story, but if I had to think of a single word to describe it, I’m not sure that “hardcore” would make the top of the list. It probably wouldn’t even make the top ten. If I had to pick a single word, it would probably be “tragic.” The story deals with an episode in the history of chemical warfare. There’s a lot of terrible things in that history, but this, about the suicide of chemist Clara Immerwahr, may be one of the saddest.

“Otto Hahn” is a story about grief and regret, and in some ways it is a story about the utter uselessness of doing better, because when you have chosen to involve yourself in something so monstrous, well. Is atonement even possible?

I don’t know, but I suspect not.

SFF, Short stories

Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead

OJ

I’ve a new story out! “Otto Hahn Speaks to the Dead” is free to read at The Dark. It’s lovely to have another story with them – they’re a market I really enjoy.

“Otto Hahn” is one of my science history stories. I’ve a particular interest in writing these, and I’ve always found the science that took place during the World Wars particularly fascinating… mostly because of the ethical issues that result from both gas and atomic warfare. Otto Hahn had the opportunity to work on both. In WW1, he worked with Fritz Haber to weaponise chlorine gas, which honestly is something I find very hard to forgive. It’s tempting to think that he learned from the consequences of his actions, however, because when WW2 rolled round and he had the chance to work on researching the atom bomb (for the Germans, as opposed to the Manhattan Project) he ultimately refused to do so.

Interestingly, as a German scientist he helped his colleague, Lise Meitner, escape the Nazis – as a Jewish scientist, she was certainly in danger from them. Meitner, who with Hahn discovered the process of nuclear fission, was offered a place on the Manhattan Project as well. She refused, on moral grounds. I’ve been thinking of doing another story about her to bookend this one, mimicking its structure and theme.

Anyway, take a look at it and see what you think.