Tag: Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy

SFF, Short stories

The Women Who Didn’t Win Nobels

OJ

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!

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.

SFF, Short stories

Year’s Best Aotearoa/NZ SF&F, Volume 2

OJ

This must be one of the most gorgeous covers I’ve seen recently! It’s by Laya Mutton-Rogers, who has done an absolutely beautiful job.

New Zealand hosted WorldCon this year, or at least it was supposed to (thanks to pandemic, the whole thing went virtual) but anyway: this, the second volume of Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy, was designed to coincide with the convention, in an effort to introduce more people to Kiwi speculative fiction. I was lucky enough to have a story in the first volume, so I was just as delighted to have a story in the second.

“Inside the Body of Relatives” was originally published last year in Asimov’s. It’s a story about an elderly woman and her artificially intelligent house. It’s a very quiet story, with no AI going rogue or anything like that – just a house programmed to be kind trying to get its increasingly lonely owner to socialise more. Which she does, eventually, but not in any way the house expects. It’s evolutionary biology to the rescue, and the story itself developed from one of those nights when I was tucked up in bed, listening to the rain on the roof and contemplating building materials. Which I don’t do very often, but in this case it all came together nicely.

Thanks to Marie at Paper Road Press for publishing one of my stories again, and if you’re interested in this lovely book, you can find it here.

SFF, Short stories

Year’s Best Aotearoa SF&F 2019

OJ

I have a new story out! Well, it’s an old story actually. “We Feed the Bears of Fire and Ice” was originally published by Strange Horizons last year, and its creepy creepy bears have shot to the top of my own personal favourite stories.

So when Marie Hodgkinson of New Zealand’s Paper Road Press decided that she was going to put together the very first volume of Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy I knew precisely which story I was going to send in. Given that New Zealand is hosting WorldCon next year, the time has come for an anthology series of this sort – it’s a great idea to showcase local talent to our soon-to-be visitors! And I knew with Marie publishing it the result would be outstanding. Though I say that with bias – Marie and Paper Road have published my stuff before, namely my SJV award-winning novella The Ghost of Matter, about famous Kiwi scientist Ernest Rutherford.

Fittingly for my creepy bears, the first volume of YBANZSF&F was launched on Halloween, and I was down in Wellington for the event. Even did a reading, so that was exciting (in a nerve-wracking sort of way). Being launched at the same time was a novella from a mate of mine, Andi C. Buchanan. Their book is called From a Shadow Grave, and it is outstanding. Andi also has a story in the Year’s Best  anthology, as do a number of other fantastic Kiwi writers, including A.J. Fitzwater, Mark English, J.C. Hart, Sean Monaghan, M. Darusha Wehm and more! And just look at that gorgeous cover by Emma Weakley…