dystopian

StarShipSofa No 537 Lauren Beukes

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Main Fiction: “Pop Tarts” by Lauren Beukes

Originally appeared in Laugh it Off.

Lauren Beukes is a South African author and scriptwriter. Her books include the black magic noir, Zoo City, which won the Arthur C Clarke Award, The Shining Girls, about a time-travelling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around, which won the University of Johannesburg Prize, and Survivor’s Club, a horror comic with Dale Halvorsen and Ryan Kelly. Her latest book is Slipping: Short Stories, Essays & Other Writing, which includes Pop Tarts and other weirdnesses.

Narrated by: Masali Baduza 

Masali Baduza is an actress based in Cape Town. She studied at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. She has two babies (read: dogs) who make her very happy. Chocolate also makes her very happy. Cheesy pasta too. One day she hopes to run a production company.

Special thanks to Jon Keevy of the Alexander Bar Cape Town theatre and the Sound Foundry studio, where this story was professionally recorded.

Tony at YouTube

StarShipSofa No 449 Hugo Nominee Part 2 Hao Jingfang and Ken Liu

Week 2 of Hugo Nominees

This story is nominated for Best Novelette

Main Fiction: “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu

Originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine

In 2002, Hao Jingfang was awarded First Prize in the New Concept Writing Competition. She gained her undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University’s Department of Physics and her PhD from the same university in Economics and Management in 2012. Her fiction has appeared in various publications, including Mengya, Science Fiction World, and ZUI Found. She has published two full–length novels, Wandering Maearth and Return to Charon; a book of cultural essays, Europe in Time; and the short story collection, Star Travellers. Her fiction has appeared before in English translation in Lightspeed.

Ken Liu (kenliu.name) is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings, the first in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, was published by Saga Press, Simon & Schuster’s new genre fiction imprint, in April 2015. Saga also published a collection of his short stories later in the year.

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Dr Amy H. Sturgis

Narrated by: Katherine Inskip

Katherine weighs galaxies for a living, and builds worlds in her spare time. She is addicted to chocolate and Japanese logic puzzles.