Authors in This Issue
Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes a lot of standalone novellas in her Diving universe. Sometimes those novellas turn into novels, as in the case of “The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades,” which won last year’s Reader’s Choice Award for best novella. “The Break-in” takes place in a different part of the Diving universe, one tangentially explored in “The Death Hole Bunker” (July/August 2023). The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades just appeared as a standalone novel. Kris is also working in several of her other series, including The Fey. The latest novel in that universe, The Kirilli Matter, appeared in February. In her newest tale, readers will enter a universe where nothing is simple . . . or exactly as it seems.
Dean Whitlock’s first professional sale, “The Million-Dollar Wound,” was included in Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Fifth Annual Collection. His last appearance in this magazine, “Iridescence” (January 1989), was a finalist for our Readers’ Award. Since then, Dean has published six novels (Finn’s Clock won First Place in the young adult category for the 7th Annual Writers Digest Self-Published Ebook Awards), along with several other well-received short works released here and abroad. His latest book is Iridescent Dreams, 20 tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It includes, he says, “every worthwhile story I had written.” The author has since produced another worthwhile story, about a very ugly practice that “goes on all the time in many forms in every country with people of all ages.” It’s a poignant tale that explores the type of courage, compassion, and help its victims need to endure.
Gregory Feeley’s tales have been appearing in magazines and anthologies since 1977. His works have been finalists for the Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, and he has appeared in about a dozen year’s best anthologies. A college instructor during the years his children were growing up, he is about to return to full-time writing. The following story is part of a now-completed novel, Neptune’s Reach, which has been appearing in Asimov’s and elsewhere for, Greg reports, “quite some time.” He tells us the earliest section, “Neptune’s Reach,” which appeared in our Mid-December 1986, issue will not be in the final novel because the science is out of date. Greg is now working on a number of new stories, “none of them set in outer space.”
Michèle Laframboise creates compelling fiction from her secret basement in Mississauga, Ontario. She recently brought out a new collection: 5 Hard & Hopeful SF Tales at Echofictions.com. Fascinated by nature since she could walk, Michèle studied in sciences, but serial recessions kept the plush desk jobs away. The fearless job hunter waded into a stream of odd gigs to sustain her budding family: some quite dangerous, others quite tedious, all sources of inspiration. The officer investigating the mystery in her latest offering discovers just how dangerous his own job can be!
Anya Johanna DeNiro is the author of five books, the most recent being OKPsyche, forthcoming in September from Small Beer Press. This is her fourth appearance in Asimov’s, though the first in quite a while; “The Wildfires of Antarctica” (October/November, 2013) was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. “The Water-Wolf” deals with transitions of many kinds—not only with gender, but also with people’s relationship to land and sea over many thousands of years, and how we can situate ourselves with rising sea levels and keep our humanity intact.
David Erik Nelson is a Jewish author from the Rustbelt Midwest. Over the past twenty years his stories have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, The New Voices of Science Fiction, Tor.com, Best Horror of the Year, and elsewhere. He’s written two DIY books, several hundred reference articles, almost a dozen textbooks, at least a million words of technical and commercial copy, and the short novels There Was a Crooked Man, He Flipped a Crooked House, and There Was No Sound of Thunder (based on his Asimov’s Readers Award-winning story “The New Guys Always Work Overtime” (February, 2013). This latest story for Asimov’s follows a postal worker who gets an opportunity to deliver more than catalogues and Christmas cards.
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the World Fantasy Award-winning Osama and the Campbell Award winning Central Station, along with many other recent novels. In his other life he is the author of literary novels, the first of which, Maror came out in the UK last year. This new story of “neo-Neanderthal cyberpunk,” as he calls it, was inspired by Lavie’s own upbringing in the land between the Carmel Mountain and the Jezreel Valley, a place, he tells us, littered with flint stone tools and inhabited in ancient times by both humans and Neanderthals. So was born Geshem-Nofel-Ba’oranim, not in mirrorshades but with a spiky attitude all the same, whose life is disrupted when he’s hired by a mysterious man from the Moon.
Kofi Nyameye is a writer, evangelist, and unrepentant digital hermit. His work has appeared in Asimov’s, The Manchester Review, Science Fiction World, and the Best of World SF: Volume 1 anthology, edited by Lavie Tidhar. He lives in Accra, Ghana. In his latest tale, Kofi flips an old Bible story on its head.
Lisa Goldstein’s latest novel is Ivory Apples, from Tachyon Press. Her other novels include The Red Magician, which won the American Book Award for Best Paperback, and The Uncertain Places, which won the Mythopoeic Award. She has also won the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden” (Asimov’s, August 2012). Her stories have appeared in Ms., Asimov’s, F&SF, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, among other places. Lisa’s novels and short stories have been finalists for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. She tells us that her new story for Asimov’s was inspired by watching too many videos of foxes jumping on trampolines.
After leaving molecular biology, Derek Künsken worked with street kids in Central America before finding himself a diplomat in the Canadian foreign service. He now writes SF in Gatineau, Québec. His short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Analog, Clarkesworld, and Asimov’s, as well as several year’s best anthologies. He has two space opera series, beginning with The Quantum Magician and The House of Styx published by Solaris. Critic Rich Horton describes him “as one of the best pure ‘hard science’ writers of the current generation.” Derek makes his internet home at Derek Kunsken.com, tweets from @derekkunsken, and is currently welcoming a newborn son into his life.