New Vandana Singh Book — from Routledge

Wed 10 Apr 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., climate change, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I just came across Vandana Singh’s recently published textbook Teaching Climate Change: Science, Stories, Justice. You can read the introductory chapter and part of chapter two on the Routledge page and I’ve pasted in their description of the book below. Despite not being a teacher, I was drawn in — I’m interested in just about anything Vandana is interested in enough to write about.

Teaching Climate Change: Science, Stories, Justice shows educators how climate change can be taught from any disciplinary perspective and in a transdisciplinary way, drawing on examples from the author’s own classroom.

The book sets out a radical vision for climate pedagogy, introducing an innovative framework in which the scientific essentials of climate change are scaffolded via three transdisciplinary meta-concepts: Balance/Imbalance, Critical Thresholds and Complex Interconnections. Author Vandana Singh grounds this theory in practice, drawing on examples from her own classroom to provide implementable ideas for educators, and to demonstrate how climate change can be taught from any disciplinary perspective in a transdisciplinary way. The book also explores the barriers to effective climate education at a macro level, focusing on issues such as climate misinformation/misconception, the exclusion of social and ethical concerns and a focus on technofixes. Singh uses this information to identify four key dimensions for an effective climate pedagogy, in which issues of justice are central: scientific-technological, the transdisciplinary, the epistemological and the psychosocial. This approach is broad and flexible enough to be adapted to different classrooms and contexts.

Bridging the social and natural sciences, this book will be an essential resource for all climate change educators practicing in both formal and informal settings, as well as for community climate activists.

“This highly original and radical book addresses the rapidly growing need for an accessible climate pedagogy which represents the different dimensions of the climate-change challenge and can be adapted to a variety of contexts.”

 

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Vandana Singh, Climate Imagination Fellow

Tue 17 Aug 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., climate change, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I was delighted to see via Locus that Vandana Singh (author of Ambiguity Engines among others) is one of 4 new Climate Imagination Fellows, hosted by the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. The fellowship “seeks to inspire a wave of narratives about what positive climate futures might look like for communities around the world.”

I have Xia Jia’s collection from the Clarkesworld Kickstarter but the other 2 writers are new to me:

• Libia Brenda is a writer, editor and translator based in Mexico City. She writes speculative fiction as well as nonfiction and criticism about science fiction and fantastic literature. Her work has been translated from Spanish into English, Italian and Portuguese. She is one of the co-founders of the Cúmulo de Tesla collective, a multidisciplinary working group that promotes dialogue between the arts and sciences, with a special focus on science fiction; and Mexicona: Imagination and Future, a series of Spanish-language conversations about the future and speculative literature from Mexico and other planets. She was the first Mexican woman to be nominated for a Hugo Award for the bilingual and bicultural anthology “A Larger Reality/Una realidad más amplia.” After that, she was so excited that she edited “A Timeline in Which We Don’t Go Extinct,” a bilingual anthology that is also a video game, which is free to download and play. She edited the Mexico special issue of the speculative fiction magazine “Strange Horizons,” published in November 2020.

• Xia Jia is a speculative fiction author and associate professor of Chinese literature at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, a city in the Shaanxi province in northwest China. Seven of her short stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. She has published a fantasy novel, “Odyssey of China Fantasy: On the Road” (2009), and four collections of science fiction stories: “The Demon-Enslaving Flask” (2012), “A Time Beyond Your Reach” (2017), “Xi’an City Is Falling Down” (2018), and “A Summer Beyond Your Reach” (2020), her first collection in English. Her stories have appeared in English translation in Nature and Clarkesworld magazine. Her nonfiction academic collection, “Coordinates of the Future: Discussions on Chinese Science Fiction in the Age of Globalization,” was published in 2019. She is also involved in science fiction research, translation, screenwriting, editing and teaching creative writing and is currently working on a new science fiction book, titled “Chinese Encyclopedia.”

• Hannah Onoguwe is a writer of fiction and nonfiction based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State in southern Nigeria, a region famous for its oil industry. Her short stories have been published in the anthologies “Imagine Africa 500” (2016), from Pan African Publishers, and “Strange Lands Short Stories” (2020), from Flame Tree Press. Her work has appeared in publications including Adanna, The Drum Literary Magazine, Omenana, Brittle Paper, The Stockholm Review and Timeworn Literary Journal. In 2014, “Cupid’s Catapult,” her collection of short stories, was one of 10 manuscripts chosen to kick off the Nigerian Writers Series, an imprint of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). She won the ANA Poetry Competition in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Afritondo Short Story Prize in 2020. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Ibadan and a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Jos. She works at a software company, providing support for the Nigeria Immigration Service.

• Vandana Singh is an author of speculative fiction, a professor of physics at Framingham State University and an interdisciplinary researcher on the climate crisis. She is the author of two short story collections, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories” (2014) and “Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories” (2018), the second of which was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2014, she traveled to the Alaskan North Shore to create a case study on climate change for undergraduate education as part of a program award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Her work on a justice-centered, transdisciplinary conceptualization of the climate crisis is part of a forthcoming volume from UNESCO, “Charting an SDG 4.7 Roadmap for Radical, Transformative Change in the Midst of Climate Breakdown.” Her short fiction has been widely published, including the short story “Widdam,” part of the interdisciplinary climate-themed collection “A Year Without a Winter” (2019). She was born and brought up in New Delhi and now lives near Boston.

It is quite an exciting program. The fellows will write short fiction, short flash fictions, and essays and so on to be collected in a Climate Action Almanac next year. They also will be doing workshops around the world including the countdown summit to COP 26 in Scotland later this year.

Congratulations to Vandana and all the Fellows. Looking forward to seeing what they do.

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Vandana Singh in the TLS

Fri 6 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

This lovely review seemed worth highlighting — Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines was reviewed by Michael Saler in London’s Times Literary Supplement:

“Vandana Singh’s science fiction . . . highlights the interplay between scientific and mythic narratives, focusing on the ways that ‘stories make the world’. A physicist in the United States, Singh was raised in India, where she was attracted by traditional legends as well as science. Several of her tales ruminate on the self-critical representations of science and the manifold meanings of myth. In one, an eleventh-century Indian poet famous for his collection of folklore has been resurrected in the future by a scientist who records alien legends, allowing Singh to compare poetic and scientific responses to oral tales. She shows that neither science nor myth are sufficient on their own, as her characters discover when they are misled by reductive empirical descriptions or beguiled by fairy-tale desires. Singh instead champions complex systems, in which discrete parts influence each other in unpredictable ways. She combines seemingly opposed categories, such as tradition and modernity, human and animal (or machine), the urban and the natural, and – most frequently – myth and science. Each yields facets of a more capacious reality that gradually unfolds within ingenious plots, which extend from earth in the near future to alternative histories and gleeful romps across time and space.”

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Strangers in Strange Lands Bundle

Fri 5 Apr 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Vandana Singh’s Philip K. Dick finalist Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is one of a dozen books in the latest Storybundle, this one titled Strangers in Strange Lands and dedicated to the memory of the fierce, kind, excellent human being known as Vonda McIntyre. We sold out of Vandana’s book at AWP, and someone just hit me up to have her on their podcast, which is testimony to how far-reaching her writing is. If you’re not sure about picking up the paperback — now in its second printing — here’s an easy way to try the ebook:

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2018 SBP x Locus

Mon 25 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Claire G. Coleman, John Schoffstall, LCRW, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Following up on my earlier 2018 wrap-up, I’d meant to post something near the start of February about the 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List but so it goes. The whole issue is worth digging into if you like weird or sff&h or genre fiction at all as between these reviewers they’ve tried to see everything that came out last year. Not everything is included in their write up but many are and I’m proud to say that 4 of our books and 3 stories we published in collections and one in LCRW were included.

I’m going to start with a lovely quote from Gary K. Wolfe and then put some reviews for each title:

2018 Locus Recommended Reading List

Andy Duncan · An Agent of Utopia
“An Agent of Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
“Joe Diabo’s Farewell”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)

“Dying Light”, Maria Romasco Moore (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #37, 7/18)

Abbey Mei Otis · Alien Virus Love Disaster

John Schoffstall · Half-Witch

Vandana Singh · Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories
“Requiem”, Vandana Singh (Ambiguity Machines)

Readers can go and vote for their own favorites in the Locus Poll and Survey (deadline 4/15).

Reviews

Vandana Singh · Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories

“A major short story collection.” — Jonathan Strahan

“An essential short fiction collection in a year that saw many good ones. Singh’s superb work has appeared in a wide range of venues, and it is good to have a representative selection in one place.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

John Schoffstall · Half-Witch

“Other highly recommended titles are Half-Witch from John Schoffstall, a traditional fantasy except that the sun orbits the world and God takes part as a not-very-helpful character . . .” – Laurel Amberdine

“Though billed as YA, had plenty for all to chew on in its vision of a magic-inflected Europe and a protagonist with a direct (if interference-riddled) line to God.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

P.S. We just sold audio rights to Tantor on this title so listen out for that later this year.

Claire G. Coleman · Terra Nullius

“Searing.” — Gary K. Wolfe

Abbey Mei Otis · Alien Virus Love Disaster

“Abbey Mei Otis publishes in literary journals as well as SF magazines, so many of the weird SF and fantasy-infused stories in Alien Virus Love Disaster will be new and delightful for our readers.” — Tim Pratt

Andy Duncan · An Agent of Utopia

“Andy Duncan – in what might well be the collection of the year – invoked everyone from Sir Thomas More to Zora Neal Hurston in An Agent of Utopia, which also brought together some of his most evocative tales about the hidden corners of Americana, from an afterlife for Delta blues singers to the travails of an aging UFO abductee.” — Gary K. Wolfe

“. . . a book that showcased why he is a treasure.” — Jonathan Strahan

“An essential introduction to one of the great tellers of fantastic tall tales.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

“Andy Duncan’s charming and affable stories abound with hidden depths, and An Agent of Utopia is no different, with a dozen stories, including a pair of originals that are generating a lot of buzz.” — Tim Pratt

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

“My very favorite story this year may have been another story from a veteran of both SF and Mystery: ‘Dayenu’, by James Sallis, from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. It’s an exceedingly odd and unsettling story, beautifully written, about a veteran of a war and his rehab – from injuries? Or something else done to him? And then about a journey, and his former partners. . . . The story itself a journey somewhere never unexpected.” — Rich Horton

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Boskone 2019

Tue 5 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., conventions, Elizabeth Hand, Karen Joy Fowler, Laurie J. Marks, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

If all goes as planned, from Feb. 15-17 you’ll be able to find me behind a table in the Dealers Room at Boskone in Boston. I haven’t been for a while — I think since our kid was oh-so-tiny and where a very kind Genevieve Valentine let Kelly go take the kid for a nap in her room, so kind!

This year Elizabeth Hand is the guest of honor so we’ll be bringing along copies of her first Cass Neary novel (where’s the TV show for that?) Generation Lost as well as her collection, Errantry. The latter just came back from the printer so if you like your books fresh off the ye olde bigge printing machine get your copy now.

Besides Liz, this year’s Hal Clement Science Speaker will be Vandana Singh, and, again if all goes as planned (weather &c. willing) we will have copies of the second printing of Vandana’s Philip K. Dick Award finalist(!) Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories. Nothing like an in-person appearance to get a book back to the printer. That’s also what’s happened with Karen Joy Fowler’s What I Didn’t See and Other Stories. I was looking at the AWP schedule (in Portland, OR, in March) and realized we were running very, very low of Karen’s book and since she’ll be doing a signing at our AWP booth that Saturday morning off that book went to the printer, too.

Three reprints, three fab writers, three good books.

Of course we’ll also have our 2 new reprints in Laurie J. Mark’s Elemental Logic series as well as lots of other good books, some old boots (seeing if anyone is still reading), LCRW, and some shiny things. Stop by and say hi if you’re there!

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Meet a PKD Finalist

Mon 14 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Awards, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I’m paperback-sf-delighted to see that both Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster and Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines are finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award, yay! — and congratulations to all the finalists!

Where’s your chance to meet a finalist?

Vandana Singh will be the Hal Clement Science Speaker at the Boskone convention which runs from Feb. 15-17 at the Westin Boston Waterfront, in Boston, MA. We’ll be there with her book in the dealers room.

And in the meantime, here’s the whole PKD Award nominee announcement, Cheers!

2019 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The judges of the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

TIME WAS by Ian McDonald (Tor.com)
THE BODY LIBRARY by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
84K by Claire North (Orbit)
ALIEN VIRUS LOVE DISASTER: STORIES by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
THEORY OF BASTARDS by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
AMBIGUITY MACHINES AND OTHER STORIES by Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 19, 2019 at Norwescon 42 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winner was BANNERLESS by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) with a special citation to AFTER THE FLARE by Deji Bryce Olukotun (The Unnamed Press). The 2018 judges are Madeline Ashby, Brian Attebery, Christopher Brown, Rosemary Edghill, and Jason Hough (chair).

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2018 by the Numbers

Mon 19 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Claire G. Coleman, John Schoffstall, starred review, Su Wei, Vandana Singh, year's bests| Posted by: Gavin

Before this week disappears I wanted to post about the year in Small Beer. The year out in the world is very dark although I refuse to be pessimistic about the present and the future. I believe everyone rises together and that working with that in mind is the way to live. One of the ways I can deal with all the crap right wing antihumanists are throwing at us around the world — besides going to protests, calling politicians, tweeting in desperation, lying on the floor, donating to nonprofits, and listening to audiobooks instead of the news — is to keep making things. Some of those things go out into the world, some of them are breakfast, some of them are ephemeral toys me and my kid make. The biggest things I make, with Kelly and the work of many other people, come out from Small Beer Press.

Every year I want to look back and see that we’ve published stories I haven’t read before — seems like a good place to throw in a reminder that we’re always looking for work by women and writers of color; our submissions are always open and we still ask for paper subs because there are two of us and we want to read everything.

So, in 2018 we published 2 issues of our million-year-old zine — still the best zine named after Winston Churchill’s Cobble-Hill Brooklynite mother, Jennie Jerome — LCRW and 6 diverse and fascinating books. To break down the books a little:

7 starred reviews — feel free to grab the illo above and put it into the hands of Netflix, review editors, &c.
5 US debuts
3 novels, 3 short story collections
3 women, 3 men
1 translation
2 NPR Best Books of 2018
1 Washington Post Best of the Year
plus 4 reprints:
— Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, 3rd printing, June 2018
— Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, 5th printing, June 2018
— Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen, 9th printing, November 2018
— Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light, short run reprint, November 2018
Somewhat related: 1 MacArthur Fellowship (so we had a sale — sort of still going)

The books:

Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories by Vandana Singh
“Magnificent.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review), Top 10 SF, Fantasy & Horror Spring 2018
“hopeful, enriching” — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

The Invisible Valley: a novel by Su Wei, translated by Austin Woerner
“pleasantly picaresque” — Publishers Weekly
“complex, colorful characters” — Kirkus Reviews
“shocking and gritty” — Library Journal
“lushly atmospheric and haunting novel” — Booklist

Half-Witch: a novel by John Schoffstall
NPR Best Books of 2018
“Genuinely thrilling.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“a marvel of storytelling” — Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review

Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories by Abbey Mei Otis
“A breathtaking reading experience.” — Booklist (starred review)
“An exciting voice. . . . dreamy but with an intense physicality.” — Washington Post “5 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2018”

Terra Nullius: a novel by Claire G. Coleman
NPR Best Books of 2018
Stella Prize finalist
“Imaginative, astounding.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

An Agent of Utopia: New & Selected Stories by Andy Duncan
“Zany and kaleidoscopic.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evocative, playful, and deeply accomplished.” — Booklist (starred review)

The zine

fiction: 9 women, 3 men
nonfiction: 1 woman
poetry: 3 women, 2 men
2 first publications

So far next year, besides helping with the ongoing progressive revolution, we’re planning on making many Small Beer things including 2 (or maybe 3) issues of LCRW and at least 3 books:

1 debut
1 novel, 2 short story collections
2 women, 1 man
4 Reprints
— Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, January 2019
— Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, February 2019
— Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback, April 2019
— Sarah Rees Brennan, an, In Other Lands, trade paperback, September 2019

And one or both of us are planning to be at Boskone (Boston, February), AWP (Portland, OR, March), WisCon (Madison, WI, May), Readercon (Boston, July), Brooklyn Book Festival (September), & maybe more, who can say?

We published a lot of things to read this year and we know at least 2 people (us!) loved them. Hope you get a chance to read and enjoy them, too.

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Questioning the Paradigms

Tue 20 Mar 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

This weekend Vandana Singh was interviewed on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy Podcast, which is featured on Wired. Although it has an odd title which doesn’t really fit the book or author (this is an author who whenever I talk to her she is always juggling 3 different tasks), it’s well worth a listen to try and catch up on some of Vandana’s thinking about the world, Arctic ice, the universe, and writing.

Since it came out last month Vandana’s first North American collection, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is shooting like a rocket through the sky and it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll have to send it to back to the printer — always a cause for celebration! I am pretty optimistic when it comes to print runs:

Spreadsheets: There are 273 preorders for this title that publishes in 62 days.
Me: Everyone’s doing Just-in-Time Ordering these days. Let’s print 5,000!

And sometimes that means going over, oops, and even yet, sometimes the world is hungrier for a book than I expected. In which case everyone from the printer to the distributor to the bookstore to the author will be delighted — except for that period when it’s out of stock at the distributor, hmm.

The reviews have been pouring in from newspapers and magazines large and small:

“There’s a wonderful discordance between the cool, reflective quality of Singh’s prose and the colorful imagery and powerful longing in her narratives” (Washington Post) | “The capstone to this hopeful, enriching collection is the small masterpiece ‘Requiem.'”(Wall Street Journal) | “Rich, dense, and balanced.” (Tor.com) | “Singh’s compassionate imagination and storytelling talents are here clearly on display.” (Intergalactic Medicine Show) | “Singh underscores the ultimate point that stories make the world and the universe has a place for all of them.”(Woven Tale Press) | “Full of risky experiments that turn out beautifully: colorful, emotionally resonant, and consistently entertaining.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])

And this review by Aditya Desai on Aerogram is particularly fascinating:

Singh is laying the groundwork attempt to re-write the plots of Chosen Ones, dystopian governments, and self-actualizing hero tropes common to Western literature, where the quest for “the meaning of life” is often seeking a single endpoint, an origin. Singh’s characters wish only to know for the sake of knowing. Life isn’t defined by linear time, it is the richness of experience.

And there’s be more reviews coming along soon.

Kelly and I have known Vandana and admired her writing for many years. One of her early stories, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet, was published in an anthology Kelly edited, Trampoline. Occasionally we’d run into Vandana at Readercon or at a Boston event and we’d talk about a collection but I don’t think it was until 2015 that I actually got Vandana to send us some stories.

A total bonus of publishing this book has been the reading the two essays Vandana wrote on the intersection of her work as a physics professor and her writing, one for Tor and one for Powell’s. Climate change is a semi-regular cause of personal despair, and these thorough and thoughtful essays are useful bulwarks against that.

You can read some of Vandana’s stories here: Life-pod · Wake-Rider · Ruminations in an Alien Tongue · Ambiguity Machines: An Examination; listen to Vandana on PW Radio with Rose Fox; or read an interview by Kylie Korsnack in the Los Angeles Review of Books: Transcending Boundaries, and of course pick up the book (or DRM-free ebook) here.

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Ambiguity Machines Giveaway

Tue 12 Dec 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Now that Am*zonGoodreads has gotten a good amount of data on readers and giveaways, in January they’re going to start charging between $100 and $600 to run these so this will be among the last we do. But, hey, put your name in the hat to get an advance print galley of Ambiguity Machines now!

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Singh the Rising Star

Mon 11 Dec 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Who doesn’t like the letter “S”? Where would English plural words be without it*? What lovely sounds this post title makes — and can’t you just hear the implied semi-colon, a la “Singh: the Rising Star”? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe a comma? A semi-colon? Nothing at all?!

Anyway, the latest anyway in a line of 10,000, besides Publishers Weekly including it in their Top 10 SF, Fantasy & Horror Spring 2018 Announcements(!), Library Journal gave Vandana Singh’s forthcoming collection a very strong review in their December 1 issue**:

“In “Wake Rider,” a young woman faces death in different forms as she also contemplates the possibilities of her life. In “Oblivion: A Journey,” a long-held need for revenge keeps the protagonist striving for life beyond death until the realization sets in that mortality may be the only relief. The heroine of “Requiem” travels to Alaska a year after her aunt’s disappearance, seeking answers. All of the stories here feature characters who are trying to discover the nature of their existence and how their lives connect others. VERDICT Rising star Singh draws on her Indian roots and physics background to bring her first North American collection to readers. Admirers of literary sf will want to read this.”

* Answers on a postcard to the usual address, thank ee kindly!
** Also in that issue: their review of The Invisible Valley.

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Luminous and Compassionate

Wed 18 Oct 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Christopher Rowe, Sofia Samatar, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Yoon Ha Lee, author of Ninefox Gambit, just finished reading Vandana Singh’s forthcoming collection Ambiguity Machines and says of it:

“Ranging in scale from the smallest life to far-ranging interplanetary adventures, and drawing upon both science and mythology, Vandana Singh’s stories are luminous and compassionate.”

You can read the title story on Tor.com. I just went over the proofread copy of the book with Vandana and it is such a fun book — if your idea of fun is Vandana’s unique thread of science fiction, which, of course it is! Or will be. Just wait and see, what a book. The book ends with a huge new story, “Requiem” set in Alaska with whales and drilling and global warming and a missing scientist.

Between “Requiem”, Christopher Rowe’s “The Border State” and Sofia Samatar’s “Fallow,” we have had a run of amazing original novellas.

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Vandana Singh Defies Expectations

Mon 3 Jul 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Says multiple award-winner Ken Liu, one of the first readers of Vandana’s forthcoming collection Ambiguity Machines and Other Machines:

“Singh defies expectation with every exquisite turn of phrase. She gives you strange, powerful visions that move the heart and challenge the mind.”
– Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

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A New Collection from Vandana Singh

Wed 17 May 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Trampoline, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I am delighted to announce that we will publish Vandana Singh‘s first US collection Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories in February of 2018. The title story, Ambiguity Machines: An Examination, can be found on Tor.com.

Long ago when the world was young and we had published just four books in two years (woah, slow down there young fellow!), we published an anthology edited by Kelly, Trampoline, which included an early story of Vandana’s, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet.” That story went on to be the title story of Vandana’s first collection which was published by Zubaan/Penguin India. Vandana is also the author of two novellas published by Aqueduct Press, two books for children, and she co-edited with Anil Menon the anthology Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana. Outside of writing fiction, Vandana, as she so neatly says, professes physics and follows her interests in climate science.

Ambiguity Machines is a book full of big ideas (big isn’t a big enough word for them . . . maybe: ginormous ideas of unusual size) and people. One of the best parts of getting this book ready for the light of day was when Vandana emailed in a story that will appear in the book for the first time, “Requiem.” It’s a story of a woman who goes searching for her aunt who has gone missing in Alaska. It’s a page turner, deep and rich, with a streak of very cheering and surprising scientific optimism.

The cover isn’t final, c’est la vie, but it will be beautiful! You can pre-order the book here.

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