Alex Kingsley has interviewed me about the Semiosis trilogy for Interstellar Flight Magazine. You can read the interview here.
Alex asked:In Usurpation, there’s a pandemic. Was this pandemic inspired by our real-life pandemic? How did COVID-19 affect your portrayal?
I answered: In the 1980s, I was covering HIV as a journalist, and one day before a meeting, I was chatting with the Wisconsin state epidemiologist. He explained that while AIDs was awful — and as a gay man, he knew exactly how terrifying and destructive it was — a different new disease could be a lot worse. He described the many ways in which it could be easier to transmit, harder to detect, more resistant to treatment, and more deadly. COVID wasn’t my first pandemic, it wasn’t the worst, and it wasn’t at all inspiring.
I’ll be at the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club at Linda Sokol Francis Public Library in Brookfield, Illinois, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 5. We’ll discuss the novel Dual Memory.
New participants are welcome!
More news: I translated the short story “Bodyhoppers” by Rocío Vega for the February 2025 issue of Clarkesworld Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine. Read it here.
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The story I translated for Clarkesworld Magazine last year, “The Coffee Machine” by Celia Corral-Vázquez, is a finalist for Best Short Story of 2024. More information is here.
From anime to video games, science fiction to Dungeons & Dragons, and mainstream comic book movies, we live in the age of the geek. Capricon 45 will celebrate dorks, nerds, and geeks with the theme “Let your geek flag fly” at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk hotel from February 6 to 9, 2025.
Capricon is a four-day science fiction convention held annually in the Chicagoland area since 1981. It celebrates science fiction and fantasy with a focus on literature. As part of the world-wide fannish community, diversity is encouraged and all are welcome. The convention is created and run entirely by volunteers, so this is a non-commercial gathering of about a thousand friends and friends-to-be.
During the day, members attend programming on a variety of topics: books, movies, television, anime, space exploration, and science. There’s a special children’s track and a teen lounge. Say hello to the mascot, Capricious the goat. Visit the dealer’s room, see the art show and auction, get into gaming, filk, or party all night long. You can still register to attend.
Here’s where you can find me:
Speculative Literature Foundation Deep Dish Reading — Bridgeport Room, Friday 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Scheduled readers will be followed by an open mic. Moderator Mary Anne Mohanraj; Shaun Duke, Sue Burke, Richard Chwedyk, K.M. Herkes, Angeli Primlani, Llewella Forgie.
What’s Hot in Speculative Poetry? — Bridgeport Room, Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Speculative Poetry is having a moment. Former Capricon guest of honor Brandon O’Brien writes spec-po. At this year’s Worldcon in Seattle, he is behind a Special Hugo Award category for Speculative Poetry. Where should you start exploring this genre? Moderator Brandon O’Brien; Mary Turzillo, Sue Burke, Brian U. Garrison.
Geeky Gardening — Bridgeport Room, Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. How to grow weird, wonderful plants for the backyard, balcony, or windowsill. Moderator K.M. Herkes; Kim Kofmel, Sue Burke.
Living in Space — Sheraton III Ballroom, Saturday 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. So you want to live in space. Permanently. Raise your kids there and eventually age and die there. Never see a gravity well again. What will it be like? How will your habitat generate centrifugal gravity? Or would it be better to float free, with no gravity at all? What about trade with other habitats, asteroids, and planets? What will your society and government be like? The possibilities are endless! Moderator Sue Burke; Henry Spencer, Thomas Barclay, Jeffrey Liss.
Putting the “Science” in Science Fiction — Columbus Room, Saturday 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Some authors have technical knowledge, others do not. Learn from science fiction authors as they talk about what to research, how to research, and what, if anything, you can fudge for the sake of story. Moderator Sue Burke; Brian U. Garrison, Jonathan Brazee, Geoffrey A. Landis, K.V. Peck.
Generation Ship Economics — Gold Coast Room, Sunday 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. What does a generation ship need to keep its humans alive? Who’s going to pay for everything at the beginning, and what economic systems may develop onboard and at their destination? Moderator Sue Burke; Geoffrey A. Landis, Jeffrey Liss, Thomas Barclay.
The FanFiAddict website is back with TBRCon2025, an all-virtual sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention that will livestream from January 19 to 26. More than 150 authors, podcasters, bloggers, and booktubers will appear on the virtual stage for 25 livestream panels, 5 live podcasts and 2 RPG sessions.
TBRCon2025 is free to watch, available on YouTube, Bluesky, X, and Threads during convention week — or to re-watch on YouTube at your convenience.
I’ll be on the panel “Is Science Catching Up to What Was Once Sci-fi?” on Wednesday, January 22, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. CST, with Mary Robinette Kowal, Malka Older, and Wick Welker, moderated by Neil Williams. A lot has changed in recent years when it comes to technology. But are we at full sci-fi tech level yet?
You can watch it live on YouTube here:
Some other panels I want to see: What Makes a Great Prologue? – Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Over the Years – Space Horror: Monsters in Zero Gravity – How Book Illustrations Come to Life – What Is the Future of Dystopian Sci-Fi? – What Writing Advice Do You Take and What Do You Leave Behind? – Sci-Fi Tropes That Need an Update – How to Market Through Email Newsletters: Do’s and Don’ts.
Written by award-winning author Cristina Jurado, ChloroPhilia tells the story of Kirmen. He’s different from the other inhabitants of the Cloister, whose walls protect them all from the endless storm ravaging Earth. As a result of the Doctor’s cruel experiments, his physical form is gradually evolving into something better fit for survival in the world outside. This singular coming-of-age story addresses life after an environmental disaster and collective madness, and ends with surprising triumph.
As a translator, I faced a particular challenge with the prologue and the closing section. I’ve translated Cristina before, and she writes beautifully. She poured her talent into prose soaring toward poetry that needed to be equally compelling in English. I did my best:
And behind it all was the roar of the swarm that was its body, millions of shrieks drowning in the fleshy throats of minute beings, a beautiful song made from the spark that lit their lives and that, doused forever, wove the music of the dead.
The novela was reviewed by the Fantasy-Hive as “a remarkable, powerful and disturbing novella that confirms Jurado as a key creative voice in speculative fiction.”
ChloroPhilia is on sale here or at your favorite bookseller.
Sue Burke 