The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels

I have a new reprint out! It was out some time back, actually, but I’m late updating. Anyway, the story of mine which has the longest title (and which I think better of every time I have to say it) is “The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels, and How World Trees Are Not a Substitute.” I’m very fond of that novelette, despite the lengthy title, and I’m pleased to say that it’s been reprinted in The Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy: Volume Four, which is a mouthful in itself.

“The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels” is one of those science history pieces I write from time to time. I like the way that speculative fiction can use science history to talk in new ways about science, both in the past and (crucially) in the present. My science communicator background means I’m very interested in talking about science in hopefully creative ways, because it’s a very general topic, I think… the impact of science on life today is universal.

I like the juxtaposition, therefore, of having such a generalist topic in such a geographically limited anthology. New Zealand has a number of excellent speculative fiction writers, and Paper Road Press is doing a fantastic job in bringing together the best of our creative achievements each year. Fingers crossed this series will go on for a very long time!

I have a new story out! Actually, it’s a novelette, which is nice. It’s got a fairly long title to go with it’s lengthy self as well: the full title is “The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels, And How World Trees Are Not A Substitute.” It’s in the latest issue of Fusion Fragment, and I love them for taking this gargantuan mash-up of a story, I really do. The story is science history and climate fiction and mythology and compromise layered over and over each other, so you see “fusion” is really the best word for it.

“The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels” focuses on three women who, indeed, did not win Nobel prizes for their work in science: Lise Meitner, Rosalind Franklin, and Chien-Shiung Wu. All of them arguably should have won in their respective fields, but the main storyline here is them spending their afterlives at the World Tree, being interviewed by another woman, another scientist, who is considerably less talented than they are and who has a decision to make. She is looking for advice, essentially, or perhaps she is looking for confirmation. Science comes with compromise, and the decision on where to make that compromise, and the decision on if it should be made at all, is a fundamental one… especially in a world which in which climate change may increase the potential for conflicts. And these three women who, in alternate realities would have received more credit for their work, were all touched in some ways by war and/or conflict, and they have ideas about how such should be navigated.

It’s a story that I’m particularly attached to, so I’m glad it’s finally out there in the world!