From April 26 to 28, Barnes & Noble is taking 25% off the price of all pre-orders again: dead-tree books, audiobooks, and ebooks. More information is at barnesandnoble.com.
This includes my next novel, Dual Memory, available May 16. The coupon code for checkout is PREORDER25
For the past 58 years, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has presented the Nebula Awards. The finalists for the best works in 2022 in seven categories have been announced. The awards will be presented on Sunday, May 14, streaming live from Anaheim, CA, as part of the 2023 Nebula Conference Online. Winners are determined by the vote of SFWA members.
I’m a member of SFWA, and I’ve read all the works in the short story category. Congratulations to the finalists! Every one of them is worth reading. There’s a bit more horror than in some years, and a bit of romance.
Here are my thoughts and my choice, with links to the stories available online. My criteria: Which story takes the most risk?
“Dick Pig” by Ian Muneshwar (Nightmare 1/22) – The heir to a house, possibly haunted, struggles against family conflicts, told with unsettling honesty. Haunted houses are commonplace, but the visceral, coarse intensity of the narrator pushes this story into risky territory.
“D.I.Y” by John Wiswell (Tor.com 8/24/22) – Two young self-taught magicians try to end a drought and wind up facing corporate greed. As usual with John Wiswell, there’s kindness, hope, humor, and a touch of sharp-eyed irony and cynicism. The two young magicians slowly dare to show their vulnerability toward each other: the story is about taking risks.
“Douen” by Suzan Palumbo (The Dark 3/22) – A dead girl becomes a kind of ghost, struggling with the pain and loneliness of death. The story is set in Trinidad and Tobago culture and told in Creole. It shouldn’t be a risk to assert that non-White-centric culture has value and interest, should it?
“Destiny Delayed” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Asimov’s 5–6/22) – Destiny can be taken from people, literally, and like anything of value, it becomes a commodity subject to corruption. The ending shows us what exactly is delayed. At risk is the reader’s hope.
“Give Me English” by Ai Jiang (F&SF 5–6/22) – Words are currency, and somehow, the exchange rate is always unfavorable to the poor. An immigrant to the New York from China loses her native Chinese and her English word by word while others acquire words she could never afford. Jiang explores a new idea, always a risk, and the result is effective and c____.
My choice: “Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills (Uncanny 11–12/22) – The entire history of abortion is told as dystopia — which it is (I’ve been living it my whole life). This story made me angry, but not at the author. The story-telling style takes risks, braiding in different characters from different historical times, staying true to history while creating rich characters.
“Something woke up. Independent machine intelligence appeared rarely, spontaneously, and scientists didn’t understand the process. Some said an independent intelligence created itself slowly as bits of programming accumulated, and eventually it would ignite into consciousness — much the same way that a pile of manure would spontaneously combust…”
On March 16, I took part in the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Deep Dish reading at Volumes Bookcafé here in Chicago, and I read Chapter 3 of my next novel, Dual Memory. You can watch a video of that reading at YouTube. It’s a short chapter, 5 minutes, and it’s funny until it isn’t.
You can see the other readers — and they were great — at the Deep Dish YouTube channel, and learn more about them at the Speculative Literature Foundation’s website post.
Dual Memory comes out on May 16. I’ll have a launch party that evening at Volumes Bookcafé in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. If you can’t come but you want an autographed copy, you can order it through Volumes and we’ll be delighted to get it to you.
You can read the first chapter of Dual Memory and get links to more booksellers at the Tor Forge Blog.
And if you’re wondering what the book is about, here’s the review by Publisher’s Weekly:
Burke explores art and artificial intelligence in this clever near-future adventure. The dual narrators, one human and one computer, meet on the small arctic island of Thule, run by altruistic doctors. Antonio Moro is a Bronzewing mercenary defending the island from the Leviathon League raiders bent on enslaving its civilians when he is blasted from a rusty garbage barge. Injured, he’s left to recover ashore, and secretly ordered by Bronzewing Captain Soliana to root out raider infiltrators. He’s also linked to a personal assistant program, Par Augustus (or “Venerable Companion”), one of only four extant independent intelligent machines. Illiterate Antonio, a self-taught artist who is invariably polite to machines, and Par, a prickly manipulator capable of well-meant deceit, make an unlikely duo, but together they just might be able to save Thule from the Leviathon League. Burke loads the story with fascinating characters as she probes how humanity’s artistic capacity to inspire might interact with AI’s flexible intelligence. This playful glimpse of nonthreatening human-machine interaction is sure to charm.
The Marlen of Prague: Christopher Marlowe and the City of Gold by Angeli Primlani
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An excerpt:
“There are always islands like Prague, and they are always in peril.… You are sworn to protect such places.…”
Oh hell. I had sworn exactly that. This is what comes from joining too many secret societies, you mix up the specifics.
***
The story opens when sorcery in England is used to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588, leaving Christopher Marlowe, a magically gifted playwright, shattered emotionally. Marlow narrates the story, and he is a delight: charming, witty, sophisticated, and entirely aware of how dire his situation is. The novel is more backstabbing than swashbuckling, and more treachery than sorcery — for a good reason.
As history tells us, Europe is slowly sliding toward the unspeakable horror that will be the Thirty Year’s War. The characters in the novel know something is coming that will lay waste to much of Europe. Can it be stopped? Marlowe gets himself into an increasingly complex web of secrets, deadly politics, and magic — magic too powerful and awful to attempt again.
Author Angeli Primlani spent time in Prague and in the theater, which lends an almost tactile depth to the writing. She also knows her history and creates a fast-moving novel about desperate people trying to save the world from those who have the means to ruin it even without magic.
My third novel, Immunity Index, is on sale during the month of April. All ebook versions are only $2.99 at all retailers.
More information and links to booksellers are at TorForge.com: eBook Deals Aplenty: April 2023!
What’s Immunity Index about?
Library Journal: [starred review] “This dystopian biothriller reads like a 21st-century version of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, crossed with George Orwell’s 1984. The clone sisters and their creator each provide alternating perspectives of a chaotic world and evince that individuals can make a difference. The story they tell is hopeful, heartbreaking, and compelling at every turn. Highly recommended for readers of dystopian science fiction or political technothrillers.”
Publishers Weekly: “Burke endows her characters with distinct personalities and conjures a frighteningly real sense of national destabilization as events spiral out of their control.”
Sue Burke 