Blog - Jason Sanford

We Who Hunt Alexanders

Jason Sanford — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:01:18 +0000

My short novel We Who Hunt Alexanders will be published on July 22 by Apex Book Company. This is one of the most personal and timely stories I’ve ever written. The novella tells the story of Amelia, a type of monster who feeds exclusively on violent people. But where most monsters like Amelia feel only anger, she experiences every emotion just like the humans she hunts. Can this neurodivergent monster survive a hateful world while saving her family and friends?

We Who Hunt Alexanders is now available from the following places:

Here’s what people are saying about the novella:

"Sanford has written a wonderfully paradoxical story: horrific yet sweet, subtle yet blunt, rageful yet loving, historical and—unfortunately—all too timely. I came away both disturbed and comforted, and I very much enjoyed it."
—Jim Hines, author of the Magic ex Libris series

"We Who Hunt Alexanders is a fast-paced novella interlaced with mystery, exploring rage, violence, and the abuse of power while unpacking new truths and unravelling the previously known. It is a bloody yet comforting story about learning to love and trust after being taught to harden against the cruelty of the world and the difficulty of solving problems if you can't reach the rotten roots, and only trim its branches."
—Ai Jiang, Nebula and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Linghun

"By turns dark and deeply touching, We Who Hunt Alexanders is a tightly crafted rumination on fanaticism, monstrousness, and the power of community in a hostile world. With a fascinating new monster, a delightful supporting cast, and some epically bloody comeuppance, this is not one to miss."
—Samantha Mills, author of The Wings Upon Her Back

"If you could rid the world of evil by eating it—by literally becoming the hell that will torture the blackguards you consume—would you? Jason Sanford's We Who Hunt Alexanders puts this very moral quandary before us, in a grisly, action-packed tale of murder, loyalty, and more zugzwangs. By testing the human heart under the most unimaginably difficult circumstances, Sanford delivers a frightening, cathartic meditation on just how far we'd go for the ones we love—even when we aren't sure what love even is."
—Carlos Hernandez, author of Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

"Jason Sanford ain't playing with y'all anymore. We Who Hunt Alexanders lives at the intersection of cyberpunk and horror. Edginess and timeliness; blood and desperation; love and terror all woven like a rogue literary DNA strand. Sharp, relentless, achingly beautiful. Like the times we live in, We Who Hunt Alexanders is a harrowing tale infused with the kind of humanity that refuses to be erased."
—Maurice Broaddus, author of Unfadeable and Pimp My Airship

"Amelia, the protagonist of this remarkable novella by Jason Sanford, is at once adorable and arcane, and her experiences are both deeply relatable and utterly terrifying. What I loved the most was that underneath everything, this is a story of friendship, in all its myriad forms: from the mysterious sisterhood of the rippers to the individual friendships between characters that aren't coaxed into becoming 'something more.' It's also a story about families, both biological and found. Unexpected pockets of tenderness are folded into every scene of this book about ancient man-eating monsters with entirely too many teeth."
—Mimi Mondal, author of His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light

2025 Hugo Award eligibility post

Jason Sanford — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 18:25:13 +0000

Last year was definitely a unique one for me as a journalist. First, Chris M. Barkley and I worked on the biggest story I’ve ever been involved in, our report on censorship and exclusion at the 2023 Hugo Awards. Our story generated massive waves within the SF/F genre and beyond, with the report being picked up by such media outlets as The New York Times, The BBC, The Guardian, NPR, Vulture, Locus, Polygon, Esquire, and many other places. Our report also jumpstarted a push for changes in how both Worldcon and the Hugos are run.

Then in the last few months of the year, I was hit hard by burnout, which slowed down my reporting. However, I was able to recover and end the year with the release of two works I’m very proud of, my report on “AI and the Enshittification of Life,” which examined the effect of an entire year’s worth of generative artificial intelligence slop on our lives, and “Your Stories and Art Matter Even When the World Turns Bad,” which explored how the work of writers and artists can reshape not only how other people see their own lives, but also change our entire world.

As such, this is my Hugo Award eligibility post. I’m eligible for nomination in the following categories:

Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, for which I’ve been a finalist several times for my Genre Grapevine column.
Hugo Award for Best Related Work for “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion,” written by Chris M. Barkley and myself and published simultaneously in the Genre Grapevine and File770.

Below is a selection of my 2024 fan writings. Thank you for the consideration.

Special Reports and Essays

Genre Grapevine columns

Glasgow Worldcon schedule

Jason Sanford — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 10:28:00 +0000

I’m attending this year’s Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland. I’m really excited about this because it’s my first Worldcon outside the USA and the first one I’ve attended in a few years.

I’ll also be reporting on Worldcon through my Genre Grapevine and social media accounts.

My schedule is below. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Friday, August 9, 9 am
Stroll with the Stars
Festival Park, starting outside CrownePlaza
Join your fellow convention members, and perhaps some big names, for a gentle stroll (1.3 miles/2km) around Festival Park, across the river from the SEC, led by Farah Mendlesohn and Mike Scott. The route is wheelchair-accessible, and we will adjust our pace to match the abilities of the slowest walkers. Sign up at the Registration Desk by 18:00 the previous day, and meet at 09:00 outside the Crowne Plaza hotel’s main entrance.

Friday, August 9, 2:30 pm
How is the Hugo Award Administered These Days, Anyway?
Argyll 1
Let's gather during Worldcon to debate whether we should pursue incorporating WSFS and implementing more accountability within WSFS and the Hugo administration process. What are the pros and cons of such a solution, and should we make any changes? The intention is to specify what we expect for the future of the Hugo Awards.

Friday, August 9, 2024, 5:30 PM
Neurodivergent Approaches to Stories Participants
Alsh 1
Neurodivergent authors and readers approach the art of fiction in different ways from neurotypical people. Stories may be a way to understand and process the world. For neurodivergent authors, traditional advice on how to write fiction may actually be harmful or counterproductive. In this panel, a group of neurodivergent authors and readers will discuss both how they process fiction written by others and how they write their own stories.

Saturday August 10 at 13:00
Autographing
Hall 4

Saturday, August 10, 8:30 PM
AI and Creative Writing - Do Androids Dream of Winning a Hugo?
Carron
There has been a surge in self-published e-books written (largely) by ChatGPT whilst some magazine editors report being swamped by AI-generated stories. For now, these are easily identifiable and generally of poor quality. However, will a time come when AI-generated fiction is indistinguishable from human-generated stories and of a standard people might actually want to read? Should we accept that this is inevitable or resist the rise of AI fiction? And how do we resist?

2024 Hugo Award eligibility post

Jason Sanford — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Update: I wrote this eligibility post before beginning work with Chris M. Barkley on our report about censorship during last year’s Hugo Awards, which was released on February 14, 2024. So where before I said it was weird to ask to be considered for a Hugo nomination, it’s now super weird. But that said, I still believe everything I wrote below. The Hugos remain an important part of the SF/F genre and I believe they will be fixed so all this never happens again. Thanks for any consideration.

The recent revelations about last year’s Hugo Awards are disturbing to say the least. So it is definitely weird to ask to be considered for nomination for the 2024 Hugos. However, I still believe the awards are an important part of the science fiction and fantasy genre. I’m also optimistic that the genre community will fix the issues that happened last year so they never happen again.

As such, this is my Hugo Award eligibility post. I’m eligible for nomination in the following categories:

Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, for which I’ve been a finalist three times for my Genre Grapevine column. I also urge people to consider nominating Paul Weimer in the same category. Paul was unjustly deemed ineligible for last year’s Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.
Hugo Award for Best Related Work for my collected writings on how machine learning systems (ie, what many people call artificial intelligence) affects writers, artists and the larger SF/F genre. These writings were collected in my book Genre Grapevine’s 2023 AI Coverage: Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning, released in December 2023.

Below are samples of my fan writings from 2023. Thank you to everyone for your support of my writing and reporting about the SF/F genre.

Essays and Coverage about Machine Learning

Note: My writings about machine learning, plus addition essays and coverage, have been collected in the book Genre Grapevine’s 2023 AI Coverage: Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning.

Other Special Reports

Sample of Genre Grapevine columns

Chicon Schedule

Jason Sanford — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 11:30:00 +0000

I'm attending Chicon, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, later this week. I’m doing the following in-person events, so please come check them out. I’ll also be attending the Hugo Awards ceremony, where I’m a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Autographing Session
Thursday, September 1
1:00 PM CDT, 2:00 PM EDT
Table Talk (advance registration required, details here)
Friday, September 2
10:00 AM CDT , 11:00 AM EDT
Neurodivergent Fan Meetup
Saturday, September 3
4:00 PM CDT, 5:00 PM EDT

Gen Con Writer's Symposium schedule

Jason Sanford — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 15:39:41 +0000

I’m a panelist at the Gen Con Writer's Symposium, which starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday. R. A. Salvatore is the Author Guest of Honor and a ton of other great authors will also be attending, including Maurice Broaddus, C.S.E. Cooney, Mary Fan, Jaym Gates, LaShawn Wanak, Carlos Hernandez and many more.

The Writer’s Symposium is a tiny part of the larger Gen Con but it’s a great way to interact with authors and also get advice on writing and publishing your own works. Definitely check it out!

Here’s my schedule:

Thursday, August 4

The Full-time Myth: Does every writer really want to do this full-time?
11:00 am in Atlanta
Jennifer Brozek, Erik de Bie, Jason Sanford, C. S. E. Cooney, Jerry Gordon

Writing Tools: Tools to help organize your writing
1 pm in Austin/Boston
Katherine Monasterio, Marie Bilodeau, Jason Sanford, Howard Andrew Jones, LaShawn Wanak (M)

Finding Novels a Home
3 pm in Atlanta
Jason Sanford

Friday, August 5

Finding Short Stories a Home
4 pm in Atlanta
LaShawn Wanak, Jason Sanford

Saturday, August 6

Submitting Your Work: Bye-bye, SASE! Modern methods of submitting work, the good and the bad
1 pm in Austin/Boston
Howard Andrew Jones, Jason Sanford, Carlos Hernandez, Steve Diamond

NFTs and the future of fiction. Can writers benefit from trying to introduce NFTs into their fiction writing?
3 pm in Atlanta
Gini Koch, Lucien Soulban, Jason Sanford, Chris Bell (M)

Imagining Alternate Futures: How to extrapolate a future for your setting
4 pm in Atlanta
Gini Koch, Donald J. Bingle, Paul Weimer, Jason Sanford

Defining Traits: How to distinguish one character from another without overdoing it
5 pm in Austin/Boston
Jennifer Brozek, Erin M. Evans, Jason Sanford, David Mack

Finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer

Jason Sanford — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 13:25:43 +0000

For the second year in a row I’m a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Many thanks to everyone who supported my reporting and essays about the science fiction and fantasy genre, with most of these works published in my Genre Grapevine column on Patreon.

Worldcon is currently providing a Hugo Awards packet that includes a sampler of my 2021 fan writings. Here’s the sampler if you’d like to download it directly:

In addition, the contents of the sample can also be accessed online with the links below.

Essays, reviews, and special reports

Samples of Genre Grapevine Columns

Blood Grains sequence of stories

Jason Sanford — Mon, 02 May 2022 12:11:05 +0000

My new novella "Blood Grains Scream in Memories" is out in the current science-fantasy issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. This novella is set in my Blood Grains universe, a far future Earth where nano-technology keeps humanity from damaging the environment.

This novella is the final installment of my larger Blood Grains story arc, which functions as a mosaic novel told across four different stories. Each story focuses on a different main character as they deal with their place within the larger world that controls their lives. With this new novella, the complete story comes in at just under 80,000 words.

Many thanks to Scott H. Andrews, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, for his encouragement and support in creating my Blood Grains saga. These stories wouldn't exist without him.

Story 1: “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories" from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Science-Fantasy Month 3 (March 2016) and a finalist for the Nebula Award.
Story 2: "The Emotionless, in Love" from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Science-Fantasy Month 4 (March 2018).
Story 3: "Where the World Ends Without Us" from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Science-Fantasy Month 5 (March 2020).
Story 4: "Blood Grains Scream in Memories" from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Science-Fantasy Month 6, (Feb. 2022).

2021 year in review and award eligibility post

Jason Sanford — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 14:16:00 +0000

I’m late with this 2021 year in review and award eligibility post. Apologies for that but I’ve been dealing with some personal issues.

Fiction Writing

The big news last year is that my first novel Plague Birds was released by Apex Books. The novel is a genre-bending mix of SF and dark fantasy and the epic tale of a young woman betrayed into becoming one of the future’s hated judges and executioners, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood. Plague Birds is weird as hell and neurodivergent at its heart, being ripped from how I see the world.

The novel is eligible for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and other awards.

I also published three short stories in 2021:

“As We Stand and Pray,” a short story in the Read for Pixels charity anthology Giving the Devil His Due.
“The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards,” the cover story in the Sept./Oct. 2021 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
"The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round," a short story released in the podcast Tales from the Trunk. I also narrated this story on the podcast.

Fan Writing

Finally, I’m again eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer for my writings and reporting about the SF/F genre. I write a regular column called Genre Grapevine on my Patreon, along with publishing original essays and special reports.

Here are samples of my fan writings from 2021.

Essays, reviews, and special reports

Samples of Genre Grapevine Columns

The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards

Jason Sanford — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 14:10:59 +0000

by Jason Sanford

Originally published in the September/October 2021 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Tessa Raij lay under the tin roof of her clapboard shelter and stared at the dead teenage girl standing before her. Tessa had slept all day under the blazing Nevada sun only to wake and discover the dead girl. The wood planks under Tessa’s mattress creaked gently, giving her the illusion she still lived in a universe of time.

Not wanting to deal with yet another person who’d died trying to see her, Tessa rolled over and looked the other way.

She’d dragged her shelter last year to the lip of the massive crater left by the Sedan nuclear blast. She dangled her feet into the crater before jumping down, taking care not to walk too far and turn the shelter or dead girl to dust.

She sat to clear her head, her silver spacesuit cushioning her from rocks and briers. On the other side of the crater, well outside her sphere of influence, heat waves wrinkled the sagebrush and baked soil. A buzzard soared the blue sky, riding the desert’s thermals.

The buzzard circled with a little too much interest but there was nothing she could do about that. At least the authorities and an outsized fear of the Nevada Test Site’s negligible radioactivity kept most people away.

From her backpack Tessa pulled a notebook with a cartoon Godzilla on the cover and wrote her daily observations with an old-fashioned ink pen. Yet another morning in a four decade curse of life. Another year without eating. A new decade without a sip of water. She took a breath last month merely to scream. And of course, she still had no clue how she — or the rest of humanity — could escape this perverse prison.

Tessa added a note about the dead girl before placing the notebook in her backpack. She then climbed back to her shack.

That’s when Tessa saw the buzzard floating toward her — the damn thing had flown into her influence horizon. Months without killing anything and now two lives in a single day. She cursed as the buzzard floated down toward her, propelled by forces she couldn’t understand.

When the buzzard reached Tessa she hugged it tight against her body. The buzzard returned to time, jerking its neck in a startle reflex and squawking in pain. Tessa folded the buzzard’s wings against its body and threw the bird away from her. The buzzard floated until it reached her horizon, where the bird exploded into billion-year-old dust.

Tessa planned to spend more time with the girl than she had with the buzzard. Step close enough to allow her to return to time. Ask her name. See if there were any final messages to deliver. Some people cried when they realized what they’d done. Others accepted their fate and spent their final moments talking with Tessa until the pain of being near her grew too great to bear. Even though Tessa wasn’t a religious woman, she prayed the dead girl would be among the latter.

But when she stepped beside the girl, Tessa received the worst shock she could imagine. The dead girl was truly and absolutely dead.

Occasionally the soldiers who were supposed to keep people away asked Tessa questions. They’d turn on the holographic system on their communications truck — always parked well outside her influence sphere — and project words into the sky. Usually Tessa ignored the questions. Sometimes she’d write an answer in a notebook and hold the paper up so the soldiers could read her responses through their binoculars.

Their most frequent question was why she liked this ancient nuclear blast crater.

Tessa no longer explained that as a child she’d lived eight horrible years near Las Vegas with her grandmother, long before the city was abandoned during the water wars of the middle 21st century.

Tessa’s grandmother had insisted on being called Aunt Fancy instead of anything hinting at closer familiarity. As a child Tessa lay in their decaying tin and plywood trailer and listened to the air conditioning squeal out barely cool breezes, the a/c running in tune with Aunt Fancy complaints about her daughter dying and leaving a child to raise.

She’d hated Aunt Fancy even then. Hated when Aunt Fancy yelled at her to stay inside so the hot sun wouldn’t make her skin darker. Hated the twists and turns of life resulting in Aunt Fancy being her only living relative.

When the social worker dropped her off at age nine at Aunt Fancy’s door, all Tessa had in her backpack was single change of clothes, a plastic Godzilla toy, and a school notebook in which she and her mother had reviewed their favorite kaiju movies and shows.

“Kids should be with family,” the social worker said to Aunt Fancy as the three of them sat at the linoleum-covered card table in the trailer’s kitchen.

“Of course,” Aunt Fancy said, pulling a cigarette from her rhinestone purse before deciding against lighting up in front of the social worker.

Tessa ignored the conversation and opened her kaiju notebook. She reread the last entry, from three weeks before when she and Mom had watched several old Ultraman episodes. Tessa thought the episodes silly and technically not kaiju until Mom whispered how, as a kid, she’d rushed home after school to watch them.

“My only TV was in Aunt Fancy’s bedroom,” Mom had said, also calling her mother by that silly name. “Ultraman reruns were on one of the cable channels but I had to watch them before Aunt Fancy returned from waiting tables at the casino. She didn’t hold with young ladies watching monster shows.”

As Aunt Fancy and the social worker talked, Tessa glanced toward the bedroom down the hall. A giant TV built like a wooden dresser sat on the floor. Was that the same TV Mom had watched Ultraman on as a kid?

In the notebook Tessa had lied and given Ultraman five stars, much to Mom’s delight. Now she was glad she did. The next morning she walked into Mom’s bedroom, wondering why she wasn’t getting ready for her job, and found her dead. She’d passed away between tucking Tessa into bed and the morning sun rising over their apartment complex.

“What’s that girl doing?” Aunt Fancy asked, tapping her unlit cigarette impatiently against the linoleum curling up from the tabletop, revealing the cracked plywood below.

The social worker tittered as she closed Tessa’s notebook. “Oh, Tessa loves Japanese monster shows. I told her the test grounds might have some ‘monsters’ nearby. Maybe you should take her there to see the nuclear craters.”

“Maybe,” Aunt Fancy said, but her hard eyes told Tessa such a trip would never happen.

When Tessa came back from school two days later Aunt Fancy had thrown away her Godzilla toy and kaiju notebook.

Now, decades after Aunt Fancy died, Tessa had finally found a crater to call her own.

For two days Tessa lay on the floor of her shack contemplating the dead girl standing before her. The girl was in her late teens. Seventeen at most. A bland moon of a face, neither excited nor afraid by whatever killed her. Pale skin with a sunburn. Hair cut short and dyed in rainbow splashes of red, blue, yellow and purple. Her bluejean-like clothes dazzled with artificial diamonds spelling out obscene words. No doubt some rebellious fad of which Tessa knew nothing.

The girl also looked familiar, reminding her of pictures she’d seen of Aunt Fancy when her grandmother was young. Tessa tried to remember if Aunt Fancy had any children other than Mom. She didn’t think so but wasn’t sure.

Unlike with the buzzard or any other item which entered her horizon, Tessa couldn’t return a bit of time to this girl. She stood immobile as a rock carved of flesh and clothes. Tessa had pushed her, hit her, even taken the hammer she used to nail together her shack and smashed her across the face. The hammer shattered but her face hadn’t been disturbed.

Tessa glanced at the soldiers sitting in their air-conditioned trucks a quarter klick away. They’d been there for the last two days, ever since the girl appeared. She watched as a new truck drove up and a white-haired man named Hix step out.

Tessa waved — Hix had been her handler for the last four decades and his father Stephan Rojas had been Tessa’s partner in the astronaut program when they’d opened that damned dimensional portal. Hix had been a young man when his father died and he never blamed Tessa for what happened, even volunteering to be her connection with NASA and the military.

But while Hix may not have faulted her for Stephan’s death, that didn’t mean she didn’t continually blame herself.

Hix held the truck door open and a young boy of eight or nine stepped out. He looked familiar but Tessa couldn’t place his face. Hix pointed at Tessa and mouthed silent words. Tessa hoped he was saying “That’s the friend I was telling you about” and not “That’s the freak in the spacesuit stuck in her own time stream.”

Hix and the boy walked to the communications truck.

“Been too long, Tessa,” Hix said, his words appearing in the sky as giant holographic letters outlined with fake fireworks explosions. From the way the little boy clapped in glee, Tessa guessed the colorful letters were to impress him.

Tessa picked up her pad of paper. “Always good to see you, Hix,” she wrote, holding the paper up for the truck’s binoculars to see.

“Thanks for making them bring me back.”

“Who’s the kid?”

“My grandson. Name’s Stephan. He wanted to see you.”

Tessa paused in her writing. No wonder the young boy looked familiar. And to have been given the same name as her best friend ...

Tessa pushed those painful memories away and wrote “Hi Stephan!” The word “Hi” flashed back in rainbow fireworks bursting across the sky.

“Still don’t know much, do we?” Hix said after they’d gone through the details of the last few days.

Tessa laughed at the joke, which Hix had made many times during the decades they’d worked together. The influence horizon surrounding Tessa reached 27 meters from her body in every direction, an arbitrary number which irritated every scientist and mathematician who studied it. Anything entering her horizon no longer experienced the passage of time.

However, Tessa did experience a semblance of time and any object she touched or which passed within a few meters of her did the same. But any other living creature in her influence sphere suffered extreme pain. And the moment anything exited her sphere it experienced a passage of time equal to what scientists estimated to be a billion years.

In visible terms, they turned to dust.

No one knew how this happened. No one knew why the sphere followed Tessa. No one knew why she didn’t age or need to eat or breathe or why if she tried to kill herself she healed instantly.

The only clue they had was that, since Tessa’s return from another dimension, every subsequent attempt to open a new portal had failed. Hix once joked that Tessa was a dimensional drainage plug.

“Someone over there didn’t like us popping into their reality,” Hix said. “They’re using you to stop any more attempts.”

To keep humanity trapped in this plane of existence.

Of course, that was all speculation, but Tessa felt it was likely as close to the truth as any other theory she’d heard.

“Hi,” Tessa wrote on her pad of paper, not showing it to Hix or his grandson or any of the authorities in the distance. She added to the paper words she’d written many times before: “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

After finishing those words she glanced again at the dead girl standing before him. Tessa tore off the page and folded it into a paper airplane before launching it into the air. The plane flew out of her influence sphere and rained dust across the crater.

Tessa smiled as she stared at the dead girl. Maybe she’d finally been given a clue about what was going on.

One night, a few years after Tessa moved in with Aunt Fancy, her grandmother walked into her room.

“You awake, shithead?” Aunt Fancy slurred.

Tessa was thirteen at the time and had been tossing in the heat for hours, as if her mattress was a lifeboat adrift on an ocean of sweat. She froze when Aunt Fancy opened her bedroom door because Tessa had been reading old Godzilla comics before climbing into bed and had left them on her desk.

But in the dark Aunt Fancy didn’t notice. She leaned on the desk, placing a scrapbook over the comics while sipping the whiskey bottle in her other hand.

“I know you’re awake,” she said. “Too damn hot to sleep.”

Aunt Fancy held up the scrapbook so Tessa could see the pictures by the light of the trailer park’s streetlamp outside the bedroom window. Aunt Fancy was in her late 70s, wrinkles and liver spots making her look far frailer than she was. But the Aunt Fancy in the photos was still beautiful and young. Fancy looked like Tessa’s mom, which turned her stomach slightly, the family resemblance with this evil grandmother tainting Mom’s sacred memory.

Aunt Fancy told Tessa that back in the 20th century she’d been a showgirl. Modeled once in a swimsuit with a cotton mushroom cloud pasted on the front. The newspapers called her Miss Atomic Blast. Her one brush with fame. Other photos showed Aunt Fancy posing beside a casino with men in suits and fancy hats while the mushroom cloud of an atomic test rose in the distance.

Tessa stared at the picture of the mushroom cloud and imagined radiation twisting a lizard into new shapes and desires. She imagined the lizard turning into a giant and striding across the desert to squash Aunt Fancy’s trailer to dust.

“You should have seen Nevada then,” Aunt Fancy said. “This was where you came to escape. To create a new life.”

Aunt Fancy laughed as she waved her whiskey bottle around the room, as if indicating the results of her new life. Tessa wasn’t sure if Aunt Fancy meant the beat-down trailer around them of the granddaughter she hated.

“I’d like to see it,” Tessa whispered.

“See what?”

“Where you took the photo. The bomb craters.”

Aunt Fancy giggled, sounding for a moment like the girl she’d been. She said she still had connections with people at the Nevada Test Site. Said she’d call in favors so Tessa could see the massive crater left by the Sedan nuclear blast.

Aunt Fancy stood up and carried the scrapbook with her, leaving the now-empty whiskey bottle on her desk and the Godzilla comics undisturbed. “Get some sleep, shithead,” Aunt Fancy said as she closed the door.

Tessa dreamed of the coming trip. Wondered if she’d see any mutant animals.

But the next day Aunt Fancy denied her promise. Denied ever being a showgirl or Miss Atomic Blast. Besides, she hated Tessa so why would she promise her anything?

When Tessa finally ran away from home she took the Godzilla comics and stole Aunt Fancy’s scrapbook. When she reached Las Vegas she tossed all of it in a dumpster, pleased everything would be incinerated with the rest of the trash.

It took the army another day to locate a name for the dead girl — Mae Song Carmichael, a runaway who’d last lived in the dried-out ruins of Las Vegas.

Tessa froze when Hix spelled the name in holographic letters across the sky, forcing her face to not react. Perhaps the army was yet again playing one of their inane games or testing a new theory on her.

Mae Song Carmichael had been her grandmother’s original name.

Tessa looked at the dead girl who resembled a young Aunt Fancy, looked at the army trucks as Hix asked if she knew the name. Tessa shook her head.

Tessa wondered how good the army’s databases were these days. Hix had always limited the information they shared with her, but Tessa had still learned life was rough in much of the US since the water wars of two decades before. The army units she saw were badly equipped and it appeared technology hadn’t advanced significantly since her time. How likely were they to maintain complete records from when Aunt Fancy legally changed her name way back in the 20th century?

“Who is Mae Song Carmichael?” Tessa wrote in her notebook.

“Best we can figure she lived in Las Vegas,” Hix said, “doing make-work for a reclamation project. They’re using gened plants to bring the desert back to life. The work attracts runaways and those searching for a new life.”

“How’d she reach me?”

“Not sure,” Hix said. “We have remotes and detectors everywhere in this area but nothing picked her up as she approached you.”

Tessa looked at Mae Song Carmichael. The dead girl was the same age as when Tessa ran away from her aunt’s trailer. She remembered a few bits and pieces of her grandmother’s stories. She knew Aunt Fancy had fled to Las Vegas to escape something. Maybe family she hated? An abusive life? Tessa had never learned the truth.

But if this was indeed a young version of her grandmother, this was a sign. The signal she’d waited for all these years.

“Where did she live in Las Vegas?” Tessa asked, hoping the army’s binoculars and scanners couldn’t detect her nervous need for the answer.

“The top floor of an abandoned casino on the strip,” Hix said. “Our probes found her ident chips and other belongings there.

“You and your people need to move back,” Tessa wrote. “And keep everyone away.”

“Why?” Hix wrote in rainbow-sky projections.

“I’m going to Las Vegas.”

Stephan’s was the last face she saw before stepping into the portal. The two of them had joined NASA together and competed to be the first to step into another dimension. After she was selected he’d become her backup, meaning he also stood there on the launch pad when the portal opened. The launch pad rested inside a massive sealed hangar, designed to keep anything dangerous — be it a microbe or larger creature — from escaping into Earth.

Both Stephan and Tessa stood awkwardly in their spacesuits as the portal shimmered and opened. Before them flowed red skies. Strange purple vegetation waved to an alien breeze.

Tessa started to step through the portal but Stephan grabbed her hand and touched helmets so they could talk without using the radio.

“You see anything exciting,” Stephan said, “keep quiet until I come through to discover it.”

She laughed as she discreetly gave him the finger.

With that Tessa walked onto an alien world. The first human to do so.

She stood under red skies with purple vegetation waving around her. The land before her rolled up and down to small hills the size of houses. In the distance stood impossibly tall and vertical mountains gleaming like glass.

Tessa laughed in happiness before something knocked her back through the portal into the hangar. The portal exploded in a burst of rainbow spasms and fireworks.

When Tessa stood back up she found Stephan frozen stiff before her. The large mission clock on the launch pad’s control station shimmered at exactly 38 seconds since she’d entered the portal. Stephan stood with his mouth open as if to shout a warning which no longer came.

When she touched Stephan’s spacesuit he came back to life. “What happened?” Stephan asked. “I saw something moving toward you in the portal.”

Before she could answer, Stephan gasped and held his breath.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “My body feels like it’s on fire.”

“Hold on. I’ll get first aid.”

Tessa waved toward the emergency responders. She tried radioing them but they didn’t move. Tessa glanced toward the main control room, where people ran about and shouted at each other. Red warning lights flashed across the sealed hangar but she couldn’t hear the sirens shrieking. The mission director stepped from the control room and yelled something she couldn’t hear.

“Wait here,” Tessa said. “I’ll bring the medics. Probably some issue with the portal.”

Stephan nodded, falling to his knees in pain while Tessa ran across the hangar to where the medics waited.

She was halfway there when the director outside the control room screamed, although Tessa still heard nothing. The man waved for her to stop. Before Tessa could do so, the man froze with hands outstretched.

Tessa glanced back at Stephan and the portal. Only dust lay behind her. She ran back to search for Stephan and the director turned to dust, along with half the hangar, which collapsed in on itself as people ran for safety.

After the accident Tessa thought repeatedly of her few seconds on that new planet. Of purple plants waving under red skies. Of the cost she paid to experience those seconds. Of whoever or whatever had damned her for reaching beyond Earth and now kept humanity from ever again reaching beyond their home.

Tessa hadn’t wanted to harm anyone else, so she stayed isolated in the desert for the next four decades.

Aunt Fancy changed that.

Tessa laughed, imagining herself as Godzilla as she strode toward Las Vegas. Hover tanks and armored mech suits and clouds of drones surrounded her, staying carefully outside her influence horizon. Hix rode in the communications truck shouting giant red words across the sky, warnings to STOP and RETURN TO THE CRATER and TURN BACK OR THE ARMY WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE ACTION.

As if they could.

Tessa knew Hix wouldn’t make such statements on his own. He was likely repeating words from furious superiors, just as the tanks and mechs and drone swarms were likewise ordered by officers who didn’t understand that all their military might was helpless before her.

Tessa pulled the young version of Aunt Fancy behind her, using the old dolly she’d transported her shack and mattress with when she’d occasionally wander around the desert. She’d first tried carrying Aunt Fancy’s unmovable body but that’d been awkward and exhausting. So she’d tied Aunt Fancy to the dolly with her blanket and dragged her through the sand to the old road. Tessa winced every time the dolly bounced off a rock or pothole but she couldn’t leave Aunt Fancy behind to turn to dust.

They passed the weathered craters and sinkholes from those ancient nuclear tests. Behind Tessa the old asphalt road turned to dust and blew away.

When they neared the boundary of the Nevada Test Site, the army attacked.

Swarms of drones fell at Tessa, ready to rip her meat from bones. Instead, the drones passed through her bubble without doing more than tickling her before they exited and turned to dust.

The mechs opened fire next, but their lasers passed through the bubble like harmless sunlight. The hover tanks also fired, followed by a bombing attack from ground attack drones moving so fast Tessa barely saw them. Most of the tank rounds and bombs passed harmlessly through the bubble.

Still, a few rounds passed close enough to Tessa to return to time and explode.

She felt no pain but the explosions blinded her for a few seconds. Once the army stopped the attack to evaluate its effect, Tessa glanced back at the young Aunt Fancy. She was unharmed, as were the clothes she wore. Tessa was the same, the silver spacesuit she’d been wearing when time stopped as clean and solid as the day she’d first put it on.

But the dolly was damaged and the backpack containing her journals gone. Tessa looked around, desperate to find the journals. She saw the backpack’s shredded remains falling out the back of her sphere of influence. Pages containing forty years of memories and thoughts scattered to dust.

Tessa screamed.

Dragging Aunt Fancy on the now-busted dolly she ran at the closest mechs and hover tanks, which desperately tried to flee. The people in the mech suits succeeded but the remote-controlled hover tanks reversed in the wrong direction as their distant operators panicked. Tessa ran through a squad of ten tanks, which burst to dust as she passed close by.

Stopping, she turned to Hix and the communications truck. With no more paper or pens she wrote her words in the desert sand.

“Attack me again and I’ll walk across this entire country destroying every damn thing!”

No words appeared in the sky over the communications truck. But Hix gave a double thumbs up.

To Tessa’s surprise the old US 95 still ran with cars and trucks. She recognized some of the vehicles from her earlier life, but they’d all be altered in different ways. Old eighteen wheelers rebuilt to run off massive solar collectors and arrays. Smaller vans and buses also powered by the hot sun. Tessa was surprised to see such ancient vehicles still being used. Hix had told her a few times how hard it was in the world these days, but she’d never truly understood until now.

Vehicles were parked up and down the road, with people watching her approach like in an old disaster film. They must have been fleeing the remains of Las Vegas when the road became jammed with vehicles.

“Think this is how Godzilla felt before attacking?” Tessa muttered to the young Aunt Fancy, who likely wouldn’t have understood the joke even if she could hear. Aunt Fancy’s broken dolly had lost a wheel a few miles back and Tessa now scratched a line in the old asphalt as she walked.

Of course, the line only lasted until the road behind her turned to dust.

People pointed and shouted at Tessa from the traffic jam. A few people ran the other way into the desert. Tessa noticed everyone looked thin and ragged with patched clothes. Some people lacked shoes.

National Guard troops stood before the people in threadbare uniforms, clutching ancient rifles which couldn’t begin to harm Tessa.

Tessa turned parallel to the road, far enough away that her influence horizon spared everyone.

The dolly was twice as hard to drag through the sand as on a road. Tessa cursed and kicked the sand.

Tessa dragged the dolly a few hundred meters before stopping to rest. She glanced back at the road and saw people clapping and cheering. Someone’s jury-rigged holoprojector shoved the words THANK YOU and DON’T GIVE UP into the heat waves rising above the asphalt and metal vehicles.

To one side of the road sat Hix and his communications truck.

“I told them you wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Hix said in golden words which rained slowly to the ground like a shower of dust. “Thanks for not making me a liar.”

“Las Vegas is gone,” Tessa said to Aunt Fancy when they reached the city limits.

A week to reach the city outskirts. A week of dragging the dolly though sand because the fools on the road wouldn’t leave her be. Instead they followed in ever-growing convoys, cheering Tessa on, holding signs expressing their love, creating holographic sky paintings of her dragging Aunt Fancy to the last home she’d ever known.

And now Tessa stood before the city and it was nothing like she remembered.

The sun set behind them as a massive dust storm built up over the horizon. In the distance stood the abandoned gambling towers of Las Vegas, their walls of broken glass still gleaming even after the water wars shattered their ability to attract the money of gullible fools.

The ruins of the subdivisions that once surrounded Las Vegas stood closer in, the houses collapsed and covered in sand dunes, orange roof tiles and stucco walls occasionally peeking out. Over the dunes grew small purple plants which blew to the breeze of the dust storm building on the horizon. Hix had told Tessa the gened plants were grown across the city ruins to both break down contaminants and return the desert to a more natural state.

The dust storm behind Tessa flowed across the setting sun, turning the sky over Las Vegas red. Tessa remembered stepping through the portal two centuries before and seeing red skies and purple plants growing over small hills while in the distance massive mountains gleamed like glass.

“No,” she whispered. “This isn’t what I saw. I stepped onto another planet. This isn’t what I saw!”

Tessa looked again. Thirty-eight seconds on that alien world. She remembered every moment of that day. Those memories had sometimes been the only thing which kept her going the last forty years.

But had it instead been this? Merely a glimpse into the future of her own damn life?

“Why?” she yelled. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Neither Aunt Fancy or anyone else answered.

Tessa lay in the sand for a week, drifting in and out of a sleep. She saw Hix a few times in the distance as the communications truck projected questions of OKAY? and WHAT HAPPENED? into the air. The crowds of people who’d been following her thinned and disappeared as people grew bored by Tessa not doing anything.

Tessa lay in the sand beside Aunt Fancy. She watched the city before them. The gened plants covering the dunes now looked more of a green-blue than purple. The sky never again burned to red from dust clouds. The skyscrapers no longer looked like glass mountains.

But she knew what she’d seen.

After a week she stood and bowed to the young Aunt Fancy.

“I never liked you,” she said. “But if that’s really you, we need to end this.”

Tessa brushed the sand off himself and Aunt Fancy and dragged the dolly onward.

The old casinos where Tessa’s grandmother worked — where she’d posed as Miss Atomic Blast and watched the distant nuclear tests — were long gone, destroyed and replaced by the newer casinos Tessa had known.

Not that it mattered. Even those newest casinos and buildings had eventually given up the ghost and become ruins.

Tessa joked to Aunt Fancy that it was like Godzilla discovering the perfect city for a rampage had long ago been destroyed.

As Tessa neared the downtown skyscrapers, Hix appeared one last time. He and his grandson stood beside the communications van on a side street under the remains of the old monorail.

“We used drone swarms to analyze every part of the city,” Hix said in floating words. “All the squatters have left the central part of Las Vegas where Mae Song Carmichael last lived. We’ve set up a line of directional drones to lead you to her last squat.”

Since Tessa no longer had paper to write with, she waved in thanks. Hix saluted her as Tessa walked on.

As Tessa walked down the Vegas Strip her influence horizon flickered over ruined buildings and walkways, turning them to dust. The marble facade of one casino fell in on itself. An ancient water fountain which hadn’t showered to anything in a years exploded in a sparkling of fine particles.

Before Tessa and Aunt Fancy flowed a glowing line of directional drones forming arrows on the ground. The arrows pointed toward a giant skyscraper of a casino. Tessa looked up. Mae Song Carmichael had lived on the 50th floor. Tessa could climb the stairs, but when she climbed too high her horizon would turn the lower parts of the building to dust.

She remembered a movie where Godzilla was defeated by several collapsing skyscrapers.

“What do you think?” she asked Aunt Fancy. “Trap?”

Tessa wouldn’t put it past the army. Not that a collapsing building could permanently harm her. She was pretty sure the cement and steel and glass would eventually be forced back out of her influence horizon like everything else and turn to dust.

Pretty sure. Tessa grinned. It’d been a while since she’d felt even a tinge of fear.

She walked into the building and began dragging Aunt Fancy up the stairs.

The skyscraper didn’t collapse, as if her influence sphere had decided to make an exception for the building even as she climbed higher and higher. It took the rest of the day but she dragged Aunt Fancy up fifty flights of stairs.

On the 50th floor the drone markers led her down a hallway. She passed broken windows and tiny sand dunes outside guest rooms and skeletons of beds and paintings and the world as it used to be.

The arrows ended at an abandoned room. Footprints in the sand told her the army had been here, but as Hix promised they hadn’t moved anything.

The bedroll belonging to Mae Song Carmichael lay in the middle of the room. On the remains of a desk lay the Godzilla comics Tessa had read as a kid along with her original kaiju notebook. Beside them sat Aunt Fancy’s scrapbook, which Tessa thrown away when she ran away to Las Vegas. A giant TV also sat in the room, just like the one in Aunt Fancy’s bedroom.

Tessa parked Aunt Fancy and her dolly in the middle of the room and walked to the windows. The glass was long gone, opening to an awe-inspiring view of the dead city. In the distance she saw army tanks and mechs patrolling the city’s perimeter. Behind them waited the smaller crowds still following Tessa.

Tessa pulled the bedroll before the TV, which had been ancient even when Tessa was young. The massive TV set in its own wooden cabinet on the floor and must have weighed two hundred pounds. She remembered the trailer floor had sagged where it once sat in Aunt Fancy’s bedroom.

There was no power or cable, but Tessa still turned the TV on. A dust storm of static filled the screen.

Tessa flipped the dial — she’d forgotten about the actual analog dial of Aunt Fancy’s TV — tuning through channel after channel. She clicked through the entire dial but only saw static the color of fine grey sand.

Tessa kept the TV tuned to static and sat down at the desk and glanced at her old kaiju notebook. Her smiled at the 5 stars for the last Ultraman episode she watched with her mother.

She picked up her old Godzilla comics and lay on the bedroll and read until the sun set and she couldn’t see the pictures and words. She then closed her eyes and fell asleep, the night sky lit to holographic words from people asking what she was seeing, what she was doing, and what the hell was going on.

Tessa woke to a sand storm, the air outside the skyscraper glowing red as the sun rose somewhere in the unseen distance. Her couldn’t see the army tanks and mechs forming the perimeter around Las Vegas or the crowds of people following her.

Tessa remembered the red skies of the alien world. It must have been an alien world. She refused to believe she’d stepped onto anything but another world.

On the TV an old episode of Ultraman played. The one she’d watched with Mom before she died.

In front of the TV sat Mae Song Carmichael, come back to life as if she’d never died in the first place.

“It’s good,” Mae said. “Cheesy effects. But what can you expect from that long ago?”

Mae spoke in a young voice with a strange accent, as if she’d spent her life using means of communication which didn’t include words. While Tessa had seen the similarities with Aunt Fancy when Mae had been frozen, now that the young woman had returned to life the similarities faded. She sounded nothing like her grandmother. Acted nothing like her.

“We’re not her,” Mae said. She picked up Aunt Fancy’s scrapbook from beside her and flipped through the pages. “From what you’ve told us, she was a right and true bitch.”

Tessa stood up. Behind her red-glowing dust swirled past the broken windows. “I never told you about my grandmother.”

“Of course you did. The moment you stepped through the portal. You told us everything about yourself.”

Mae stood and spun her body in a circle, dancing like Aunt Fancy claimed she’d done while young. On the TV behind her Ultraman spun into the same dance as he fought a monster in a toy city.

“Why have you trapped me here?” Tessa asked, speaking the questions she’d spent years contemplating. “Why have you trapped everyone, making us unable to open another portal?”

“Are you certain you visited another world? Maybe you merely glimpsed the future you’re now living.”

“I refuse to accept that. You hated that we’d learned to travel the universe. You hated that we’d discovered how to leave this place.”

“That’s the problem with your species,” Mae said. “You want monsters. You want heroes to save everyone. But when something actually threatens your world, you don’t know what to do.”

Tessa glanced out the windows. The dust storm no longer looked like randomly blowing sand. Instead, the shape of a massive claw slid by the windows. She shook her head. The sandstorm and the red sunlight was playing tricks with her mind. Or else Mae was.

“Fine,” Mae said with a perfectly indignant teenage snort. “You travelled to a new world. Does that make you happy? Does that make the last forty years worthwhile?”

Tessa didn’t answer, unsure what to say. Mae smirked.

“What’s funny is that your planet is, on one level, nothing but dust,” Mae said. “Every bit of this planet is embedded with dust — the dust of the dead, the dust off the living, the dust of your dreams. It’s actually quite pretty if you know what you’re looking at.”

Outside the window the red dust swirled harder and harder, formed a giant eye which looked into the room. The dust monster shrieked, a shrill sound which both called to Tessa and made her want to huddle in fear behind the TV.

“What do you want?” Tessa said.

Mae stepped forward and held Tessa’s face so they looked eye to eye.

“We should ask that question,” Mae said. “You have such a beautiful world, yet you want to see others. Why?”

Tessa glanced again at the giant monster forming outside the skyscraper. Godzilla had been formed because of what humanity did to the world around them. As a warning. As a protector.

“Are you trying to escape your own monsters?” Mae asked, squeezing Tessa’s face so painfully tightly her jaw felt as if it might break. “Are you trying to escape what you’ve done to your only true home?”

Tessa thought of how badly the planet had changed over the last century. She couldn’t lie — there were always those who’d wanted to leave Earth. Who’d wanted to go through a portal to a new, unspoiled planet. To leave the harm they’d done behind.

But that wasn’t why she’d stepped through the portal.

“No,” Tessa said. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I just wanted to see what else is out there. I don’t want to flee this world.”

Mae released Tessa’s face, causing her to stagger away from the teenage girl. Outside the red dust storm collapsed, raining to the ground and taking with it the dust’s self-created monster.

Mae walked to the window and looked at the desert and the crowds surrounding the city.

“You’re an interesting people,” Mae said. “And you’re an interesting individual. You had so much pain and hate directed at you, yet you never hit back at the person responsible.”

Mae glanced at Aunt Fancy’s scrapbook, which Tessa had once destroyed, and snorted. “Well, you didn’t hit her back too much. And you still kept hope in your heart no matter how little hope should exist.”

Mae stood before the window in the light of the rising sun as her body grew fuzzy. Her skin and clothes began to drop away like a sprinkling of dust.

“We don’t need visits from people trading one damaged world for the chance to destroy another,” Mae said. “But, perhaps, not all of you are like that.”

Mae’s arms rained into dust, along with her legs and chest. Only her face remained, speaking a few final words before it too blew away.

“We’ll allow you to visit,” she said. “But for now, only you.”

When Tessa left the room she carried Aunt Fancy’s scrapbook and the Godzilla comics. She walked down the fifty flights of stairs, out the building, through the dead city and toward the army perimeter.

She breathed again. Even when she gasped for breath after walking too fast she couldn’t be happier. And she was thirsty. And hungry. And she could again hear the world outside her sphere of influence. And best of all she no longer had a sphere of influence!

When she neared the army lines she waved and called out to Hix.

The soldiers nervously aimed their weapons at her, so Tessa kept her distance until Hix walked up to her by himself. He walked tentatively, as if each step might turn him to dust. Finally he stood before her.

“We still don’t know much,” Tessa said, “but we now know a little more than before.”

Hix hugged her.

Hix and the other NASA and army staff sat in their control vehicle and listened to Tessa’s story. If anyone doubted her, the recordings and data from her spacesuit silenced them.

Four decades of video. Four decades of data. Everything Tessa had seen and heard during those 38 seconds on that alien planet. Everything she’d live through over the last forty years. Even her conversation with the alien in the form of Mae Song Carmichael.

“Her suit’s systems can’t store that much data,” one army general said. “Or keep power for that long. This is impossible.”

“So was her life for the last forty years,” Hix said.

Tessa didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

“Is every person stepping through a portal going to have their life ripped apart by aliens?” the army general asked.

“I don’t think so,” Tessa said. “It sounds like no one else will get a chance to go through a portal for a long while. At least, not until we make progress fixing our own world.”

Later that night Tessa grew tired of answering questions. She left Hix and the others to argue among themselves and stepped outside the control vehicle, enjoying the breeze on her skin and the feeling of no longer wearing a spacesuit. She sipped a cup of tea and stared at the city in the distance. She watched the moon hang over the desert and the wind rustle the leaves of the plants bringing back this environment.

Mae was right, she realized. This is a beautiful world. Glad I’m once again a part of it.

A decade later Tessa stood on the alien world under red skies with purple vegetation waving at her feet. The land rolled around her in small hills with impossibly tall mountains gleaming like glass in the distance.

But this wasn’t the dead Las Vegas. This was truly another world.

Tessa turned around in her space suit and glanced back through the portal. Hix watched her, wearing his own spacesuit but obeying mission protocols to not attempt to step through the portal. Not that the portal would have let him pass in the first place — only her.

“As you can see,” Tessa said to the billions of people watching, “this is a world totally different from our own. But if any of you want to experience it for yourself, all of us will have to convince the aliens who live here that we’re worthy of visiting.”

Tessa rolled her eyes at sounding so preachy, but mission control had told her to lay it on thick to everyone watching. While the world was rebuilding, there was still a need to show people how far everyone had to go. To demonstrate why humanity needed to prove we could take care of our own planet.

Tessa glanced again at the world around her. She could now explore as much of it as she wanted. Maybe even finally encounter the creatures which had spoken to her.

But there’d be time for that later.

“I’ll do a longer trip tomorrow,” she radioed as she walked back through the portal. “I’m coming home.”

THE END

My DisCon III schedule

Jason Sanford — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 22:30:00 +0000

The DisCon III Worldcon will be held December 15 to 19 in Washington, D.C., with the complete program here. The convention will also offer many of their sessions virtually.

I’m hosting a Kaffeeklatsch where I’d be glad to answer publishing and writing questions on topics covered in the Genre Grapevine. I’ll also be signing copies of my novel Plague Birds and taking part in several panels.

Here’s my schedule:

Thursday, December 16, 5:30 PM, Kaffeeklatsch
Thursday, December 16, 7:00 PM, Archaeological Fact in Historical Fiction with Jennifer R. Povey, E. Lily Yu, and Marie Brennan.
Friday, December 17, 7:00 PM, Sip With the Stars
Saturday, December 18, 10:00 AM (virtual session), Writing About the Thing We Love: Fan Writing with Chris Garcia, Natalie Luhrs, Cora Buhlert, Elsa Sjunneson and Paul Weimer.
Saturday, December 18, 1:30 pm, appearance at the Apex Books booth in the exhibit hall. Pick up your own signed copy of Plague Birds.
Saturday, December 18, 2:30 PM, Looking for the Fountain of Youth with Douglas F. Dluzen, N.E. Davenport, Rodrigo Juri, Sarah Guan, and William Ledbetter.
Sunday, December 19, 10:00 AM, Autograph Signing

I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Plague Birds

Jason Sanford — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 10:07:00 +0000

Finalist for the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel!
Finalist for the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award!

My debut novel Plague Birds is now out from the award-winning small press Apex Books. Plague Birds is a genre-bending mix of science fiction and dark fantasy and the epic tale of a young woman betrayed into becoming one of the future’s hated judges and executioners, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood.

The novel can be ordered from the following places:

Translations

Spanish: Las Aves de la Peste from Dolmen Editorial, Spain

Praise for Plague Birds

“Without a doubt, one of the best science fiction novels in recent years ... A story with a very well-constructed lore, from the past events that have led to chaos and a great war, the creation of this new post-apocalyptic civilization and its rules, and the lack of a great leader or government where life is almost like the Middle Ages under the control of artificial intelligence. It becomes a fierce critique of humanity, which has played at being gods without analyzing the subsequent consequences.” — Monica Grau Seto, Nueva Tribuna

"A standout work within the panorama of contemporary science fiction. Its blend of technology, mysticism, ethics, and human emotions creates a deeply satisfying reading experience. It's a book that challenges the reader, poses questions without easy answers, and builds a world that remains in the memory long after the last page has been read." — Distopolis

"A masterpiece in world-building, Plague Birds is a wildly imaginative thrill ride set in a weird future populated by biogenetically engineered human/animal hybrids, benevolent and malevolent AIs, alien forces and—strangest of all—plague birds, powerful arbiters of justice who are bonded to AIs that course through their veins. An action-packed and riveting page-turner, I couldn’t put it down." —Mercurio D. Rivera, World Fantasy Award-nominated author

"Such a perfect blend of sf and fantasy weaving memory, loss, technology, and family into a wholly unique tapestry that left me turning the pages just to see what he would do next" —Maurice Broaddus, author of Pimp My Airship and Kingmaker

"A book thick with bloodlines of family, friendship, and history. This is truly Jason Sanford at his finest: a story with real bite. Its characters are so clear and so real that I laughed with them, cried with them, and sat gripping the final pages because I didn’t want to let them go. With cities that come alive (literally) and prose with personality, Plague Birds is a book that I’ll be thinking about for days, months, years to come." —Jordan Kurella, author of the forthcoming novel I Never Liked You Anyway

"For his debut novel, Plague Birds, Sanford has written a lush speculative fiction epic set in a post-apocalyptic world. Filled with genetically enhanced humans and AIs, the story centers on a reluctant heroine-turned-plague bird who must investigate the past to create a new future. Readers desperate for characters who transform tragedy into hope will love how Sanford weaves seemingly disparate threads to a thrilling climax and satisfying conclusion." —Monica Valentinelli, author of the Firefly Encyclopedia

"In this fun and thrilling far-future story where towns are sentient, monks are cannibalistic, and AIs are both gods and jerks, Jason Sanford explores how trust is still a characteristic of the human condition, even if that being is not what we recognize as human at all." —LaShawn M. Wanak, editor of GigaNotoSaurus

Thank you for the Nebula and Hugo nominations

Jason Sanford — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 10:36:00 +0000

I shared this news elsewhere but "The Eight-Thousanders," originally published last year in Asimov’s Science Fiction, is a finalist for this year’s Nebula Award for Best Short Story. The story will be reprinted later this year in The Best Horror of the Year Volume Thirteen, edited by Ellen Datlow. If you’d like to read the story now it was recently reprinted in Apex Magazine.

I’m also a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer for my Genre Grapevine column and other essays and reports. You can find a sample of these works here.

Many thanks to everyone for supporting my short fiction and nonfiction writing. I’m thrilled and honored by both nominations and none of this would have happened without the people who read and enjoy what I write. Thank you!

Eligible for Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer

Jason Sanford — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 16:27:06 +0000

Thank you to everyone for your support of my writing and reporting about the SF/F genre. I'm late to the game in making this eligibility post, but I’m again eligible for nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. I write a regular column called Genre Grapevine on my Patreon, along with publishing other original essays and commentary on both Patreon and my website.

Here are samples of my fan writings from 2020.

Essays, reviews, and special reports

Sample of Genre Grapevine columns

"The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round" out in Tales from the Trunk

Jason Sanford — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 13:31:17 +0000

Hilary B. Bisenieks recently hosted me on the podcast Tales from the Trunk, where I narrated a brand new story called "The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round.” Go check out the podcast, which also delves into a number of other subjects including the genre community, the joys of short fiction, and why Randall Kenan is one of my favorite authors.

Many thanks to Hilary for having me on the podcast!

If you also want to read my new story, it’s pasted below.

The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round

by Jason Sanford

All the neighborhood kids except for Jane cheered when the torture bus stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house. After all, her roses were far too red and her white-painted house far too dazzling and she continually asked kids not to short-cut across her lawn of perfectly cut grass.

Jane tried explaining that Mrs. McKinney was nice and didn’t deserve the torture bus. However Binny pushed Jane aside and declared that Mrs. McKinney deserved to be hurt.

“I knocked a baseball in her backyard last week,” Binny said, “and she didn’t return it!

He said this last part as if he’d just revealed the suspect behind a grisly murder.

“Did you ask for the ball back?” Jane muttered. The other kids rolled their eyes.

“Doesn’t matter,” Binny snapped. “It’s my ball. You don’t give it back, that’s stealing.”

Binny wasn’t the biggest kid in neighborhood, but he was the meanest and he knew how to punch. Plus, his parents had been subjected to multiple visits by the torture bus. Binny told anyone who’d listen that he no longer feared punishment for his misdeeds. If his parents could survive the torture bus, so could he.

Jane fell quiet as the other kids glared at her. Those kids were certain they were right. And for them, Mrs. McKinney clearly resided on the evil side of the neighborhood.

They watched as the torture techs opened the back of their yellow bus and wheeled out an iron maiden stretcher and a satchel of scary tools. The techs wore black coveralls embroidered with a grinning cartoon devil holding a red whip. The lead torture tech skipped happily to Mrs. McKinney’s door and rang the bell.

Mrs. McKinney opened the door, her entire body shaking, and let them inside.

Once the door closed the kids ran across the street and stood on her lush green lawn. Jane didn’t want to go but Binny grabbed her arm and dragged her along.

The kids listened as Mrs. McKinney screamed.

Everyone but Jane oohed when Mrs. McKinney shrieked.

Everyone but Jane aahed when Mrs. McKinney cried.

And when Mrs. McKinney begged for mercy, everyone but Jane laughed because they knew begging for mercy did no good.

Jane tried to leave but Binny held tight to her arm. When Jane finally said she had to go home or she’d miss lunch, Binny nodded like a beach ball bobbing in a pool of splashing kids.

“Let’s listen up close,” Binny whispered. “From the bushes. Then I’ll let you go.”

Jane and Binny hid in the bushes beneath Mrs. McKinney’s living room window. Being this close to the house made Jane feel as if Mrs. McKinney’s cries shimmered in rainbow colors. As if Jane saw the screams in reds and whites and blues instead of hearing them.

Sickened, Jane turned to leave but Binny sucker punched her in the stomach. Jane doubled over between the house and shrubs. She gasped, tried to stand, couldn’t. She fell back, still gasping.

“You’ll leave when I say,” Binny said with a snort.

When the torture techs left two hours later, the other kids applauded. The lead tech, a tall man with the name LEROY sewn on his coveralls, waved at the kids before the torture bus drove away.

Only then was Jane allowed to stagger home.

That night Jane didn’t sleep well. She dreamed of baseballs bouncing into Mrs. McKinney’s yard, causing the old lady to cry out in pain each time one touched her lawn. Jane woke screaming, as if the torture bus had parked inside her head.

Her mother opened the door to her bedroom. “Bad dream, hon?” Mom asked.

“What did Mrs. McKinney do?” Jane whispered. “To make the torture bus come?”

Mom sat on the edge of Jane’s bed and hugged her. One of those reassuring hugs Mom frequently gave when Jane was young.

Jane was now too old for that and pushed the hug away.

“Seriously, Mom,” she said. “What did Mrs. McKinney do?”

Mom sighed. “How should I know? Maybe it’s all of what we do. The times you’re nasty to some stranger. The moment you gave the finger to another driver. The day you called in sick at work so you could go to the beach. Our sins add up.”

Mom kissed Jane on the forehead and walked back to her own bedroom. But now Jane definitely couldn’t sleep. Were her sins being compiled somewhere? She opened the blinds on her window and looked across the street at Mrs. McKinney’s house. A single light glowed from a second floor window. The silhouette of Mrs. McKinney stood behind the glass as if contemplating the neighborhood.

Jane thought about turning on her own bedroom light. Maybe if she blinked the light Mrs. McKinney would know she wasn’t alone.

But she didn’t. Instead, Jane stood in the dark and watched until Mrs. McKinney’s own light turned off.

Jane lay down again in her bed. But she still couldn’t sleep.

The next afternoon Jane sat on her front lawn tossing a baseball into the air and catching it without a glove. Binny and the other kids were at the park playing a pickup game. Even though Jane was the best pitcher in the neighborhood she’d refused to join them. Jane knew if Binny or the others teased her about yesterday she’d lose her temper. Which would cause Binny to beat her up. Or worse, her own anger might make the torture bus arrive.

As Jane sat on the grass forcing herself to think happy non-sinful thoughts, a small white van with no markings on the side stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house. A tall man in a plaid polo shirt stepped out holding a black bag. He walked to the front door and rang the bell.

Jane recognized him as the lead torture tech from yesterday. When Mrs. McKinney opened the door the man walked in without being invited. Mrs. McKinney hesitated before slowly closing the door.

Jane glanced at her own house. Mom wasn’t watching her right now and no one else in the neighborhood had noticed the torture tech. Probably because he wasn’t driving the scary yellow torture bus or wearing his usual black coveralls.

Jane ran across the street and stood in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house, tossing the baseball and catching it as if she had nowhere else to play. She did this for nearly a half-hour before the front door opened and the tech walked out. He thanked Mrs. McKinney, who grinned nervously and said it was her pleasure before gently closing the door.

LEROY was embroidered in small letters over the right pocket of the man’s shirt. As he walked to the van Jane dropped the baseball, which rolled under the vehicle.

“Let me see if I can reach it,” Leroy said, kneeling and looking under the van.

“May I ask a question?” Jane asked.

Leroy stopped reaching for the baseball. “Might be dangerous,” he whispered. “You’ll be on people’s radar. They’ll see you talking with a torture tech.”

“No one’s watching. And you aren’t in uniform.”

“You’d be surprised what people notice, even on discreet follow-up visits like this. But go on. What’s the question?”

“What did Mrs. McKinney do?”

Leroy laughed. “You’re not supposed to ask that. Hell, not even Mrs. McKinney knows what she did.” Leroy looked around the neighborhood. No one was watching. Even Mrs. McKinney’s blinds were closed. “You really want to know?”

Jane nodded.

“Every action has an opposite and equal reaction,” Leroy whispered as he pulled a clipboard from his bag. A stack of pages with swirling images and colors lay attached to the board, the top page bearing Mrs. McKinney’s name. Leroy tapped the page. The swirling colors coalesced into words and diagrams and information about Mrs. McKinney.

“Let’s see,” Leroy said. “Ah, look here. The tipping point was a few days ago in a grocery store. Mrs. McKinney took so long paying that Betty Deviny, who lives down the street and was in line behind her, complained. But that’s merely the peak of our nasty little iceberg. Mrs. McKinney also recently yelled at her grown daughter for staying engaged to a man who abuses her. And she’s said sacrilegious things to the preacher at her church — on Easter, of all days — and there’s something here about a baseball in her backyard not being returned.”

Jane frowned. “That would be Binny.”

“The ball? Ah yes, I see the footnote. You’re correct.”

“But none of that’s bad.”

“Maybe not. But it’s enough.” Leroy shuffled the pages on his clipboard. “Want to see your page? Or your Mom’s?”

Jane glanced at the clipboard’s new top page, where her name appeared in black alongside a swirling rainbow of deeds and events from her life. She recognized the cruel words she’d said a while back to Binny and the time she’d yelled at her mother because she didn’t want to visit relatives. Jane even saw this very moment, as she wrongly learned of the connections and events which brought the torture bus to someone’s door.

Jane looked away. “I don’t want to know.”

Leroy placed the clipboard back in his bag and reached under the van, pulling out the baseball. “You’re a good kid, Jane,” he said, even though Jane hadn’t shared her name. He handed the ball back. “I’ve got something for you.”

Leroy pulled a business card from his pocket and placed it in Jane’s hand next to the baseball. “One free torture,” Leroy said. “You call that number, say a name, and the bus will pull up at their door within the hour.”

Jane stared at the card, which was absolutely black except for a series of glowing white numbers.

Leroy stepped into the van and drove off with a big wave of his hand and a big grin on his face.

Jane sat on her front lawn for the rest of the afternoon, the baseball in one hand and the card in the other. An hour after Leroy left a car stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house and her daughter stepped out. The daughter had a large bruise on her left eye, which Mrs. McKinney didn’t comment on as the daughter helped her mother walk to the car. They drove off without a word, not wanting to be late for evening church services.

Jane flicked the card against the baseball. Maybe she should call and name the abusive jerk engaged to Mrs. McKinney’s daughter. He deserved to be tortured. Maybe it would make him stop hurting people.

Or maybe Jane should call about Betty Deviny, who’d been in line at the grocery store when Mrs. McKinney took too long paying. Of all the silly reasons to be angry at someone. Leroy said that incident was the tipping point which caused Mrs. McKinney to be tortured. Surely Betty Deviny deserved punishment for that?

But Jane was uncertain and carefully slid the card back in her pocket. Could it truly be this simple? The pages on the torture tech’s clipboard showed so many slights and wrongs and mistakes and misunderstandings swirling around each person’s life. So much information collected about each of them. Information building and growing until one minor issue went bumpety-bump and the torture bus arrived at your door.

And Jane knew she wasn’t innocent. Her own page had shown the time she’d yelled at Mom because she didn’t want to visit relatives. Jane had been in a sour mood that day and merely wanted to be left alone. She didn’t hate her family, but that was how Mom took it. When the torture techs eventually knocked on Jane’s door and dragged in their iron maiden stretcher and satchel of scary tools, would they say — as Jane screamed — that this is how she’d made her mother feel on that long ago day?

Jane shuddered and cursed. Not pretend curses like the kids muttered to avoid bringing the torture bus, but a real curse.

She was still sitting on her front lawn when Binny and the other kids walked down the sidewalk, returning from their pickup game.

“Aww,” Binny said in his booming, bragging voice, his baseball bat slung over his shoulder. “Jane has no one to play with.”

That’s going on your page, Jane thought but didn’t say. What she did say, though, was “Piss off.”

The kids stared at her in shock. “What was that?” Binny asked in a low voice.

“I said piss off! Leave me alone!”

The kids looked around, as if bad language alone would cause the torture bus to appear. Binny’s hands shook. Usually he was the one who spoke bad words and beat up kids and did all the other wrong doings in their neighborhood.

Binny pointed the baseball bat at Jane. “You better be careful,” he warned. “My dad’s been tortured four times, my mom three times. I don’t fear the torture bus.”

“You should,” Jane said as she stood up, her baseball gripped tight in her hand, ready to be pitched at Binny’s head if the bully attacked. “I’ll crack your skull open with this ball before you reach me.”

Binny glanced nervously at the baseball Jane held. All the kids knew how good a pitcher she was. “You do that,” Binny said, “and the bus will get you.”

“Maybe. But it’ll get you first. Your head will be split open and you’ll be crying and there will be the torture bus, the techs knocking at your door.”

Jane glared at Binny, daring the bully to try her. Jane felt the baseball in her hand. Felt the business card poking her slightly in her pocket.

Binny looked at the other kids. “Let the bus have her,” he said, pretending to more bravery than he felt. “When the bus comes, we’ll laugh as she screams.”

Jane jumped forward as if to bean Binny with the ball, causing him to stumble backward and fall. Binny quickly jumped up — his face red, embarrassed — and glared at Jane before walking down the sidewalk toward home. The other kids stared at Jane in shock before following him.

Jane stood on the front lawn. Thick, green grass, although not as thick nor as green as Mrs. McKinney’s yard.

Jane knew this was going on her page. All of it was. Every day of her life becoming merely one more step before the torture bus arrived for her.

But if everything went on her page, did it even matter if she was good or bad?

Jane pulled the card from her pocket and tapped it against the baseball. Binny and his friends would be at his house by now. They’d be laughing at her. Calling her names. Deciding what to do the next time they caught her alone.

Maybe, just maybe, the torture bus could take care of both Binny and his friends.

It couldn’t hurt to ask.

Jane walked inside to make the call.

END

My novel Plague Birds to be published by Apex Books!

Jason Sanford — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 15:53:34 +0000

Art by Hugo Award winning artist Jim Burns for the second Plague Birds story "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues." See below for more artistic interpretations of my Plague Birds universe.

Good news for fans of my Plague Birds stories: The novel has been accepted by Apex Books and is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2021.

Many thanks to Jason Sizemore and Apex Books for accepting it! In addition, many thanks to all my Patrons for supporting my writing.

Plague Birds is set in the far future and is the epic tale of a young woman betrayed into becoming one of her world’s hated judges and executioners, with a killer AI bonded to her very blood. While the novel is science fiction, it reads much like fantasy and is weird and dark.

For those who haven't read these stories, the first one — "Plague Birds" — was published in the acclaimed British magazine Interzone, where it won the magazine's annual Readers' Poll. The story was subsequently translated into a number of languages (including Czech and Chinese) and was the subject of a well-received podcast on Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine.

The following year I wrote a sequel called "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues," which was also published in Interzone. Translations of this story were published around the world while its podcast edition was named a finalist for the 2012 Parsec Awards. "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues" is not part of the novel and functions as a stand-alone tale in the universe. I’m considering releasing this story on its own once Plague Birds comes out.

Above and below are illustrations by different artists of the Plague Birds characters. Note there’s a lot of artistic license here because the characters, for example, don't wear skin-tight leather clothes or look like vampires.

The original publication of the first "Plague Birds" story in Interzone. Cool art by Ben Baldwin, although there are artistic liberties. (Meaning no red leather skin-tight suits in my story or novel. Sorry.)

Artwork from the Chinese edition of the original Plague Birds short story. And no, the main character doesn't let her shirt fly up like that in the original story or the novel. Definitely artistic liberties at work again.

My 2020 award eligibility post

Jason Sanford — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 18:55:57 +0000

It’s the season for authors to post award-eligibility post so here’s mine. If you’re considering works for the Hugo, Nebula or World Fantasy Awards, my short story "The Eight-Thousanders" is eligible. The story was published in the Sept./Oct. 2020 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction and focuses on the ethical issues surrounding mountain climbing and the destructive tech bro attitudes found within elite industries.

Or tl;dr: VAMPIRE ON MOUNT EVEREST!

Copies of that issue of Asimov’s are no longer available, but the story was reprinted in Apex Magazine and can be read online.

If you prefer to read the story in a different format you can request a free digital copy of "The Eight-Thousanders" from me at this link. When you complete that short form you’ll be given the option to request the story as a Kindle, Epub, Word, or PDF file.

So far the story is receiving excellent reviews, with SFRevu calling it “Hugo worthy” and Sam J. Miller calling it “a chilling, exciting story of climbing Mount Everest, and the internal demons that drive you to do so, and the external ones that might confront you when you do.”

If you want to read more about the story, the Asimov’s blog did an interview with me about it including the story’s origins and my thoughts on issues such as masculinity.

Review of The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg

Jason Sanford — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 15:12:43 +0000

It’s been a rough year. For far too many people in the world, it’s been a rough few decades capped by an even worse year. And when we say 2020 is painful what we’re really saying is that not only are we hurting, we’re being actively harmed in a time of crisis by those with power.

I’ve been reading as many stories as I can this year as a form of something I can’t even describe. As escape? Therapy? A search for wholeness or meaning? So many great stories have been published in 2020, almost as if life understands that fictional creations — that fantasies and myths and dreams — are a powerful way to not only to heal each other but the very world itself.

And the stories I’ve read have helped. Some. A bit. Because I’m still making it through. Still alive.

Now I’ve read The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg. And when I finished this novella I cried because it was so joyful and beautiful and moving that for the first time in a long while I caught a glimpse of the path forward.

The Four Profound Weaves is set in the Birdverse, a diverse world of feathered gods and mysterious deserts and magical names which bind people together and tear them apart. The story follows the lives of two people — Uiziya e Lali and an initially nameless man — who are in their sixties and trying to change their lives. But they’re up against a world which far too often believes change is a bad thing. That life should remain static and unyielding. That who others believe we are at one single moment of our life is who we must be for all our lives.

This is a lyrical, poetic, mystical journey which features some of the most beautiful writing I’ve encountered recently. In Lemberg’s hands a simple phrase like “The dawn is never far away” gains added depth and resonance to both stir the soul and make you pause your reading to reflect on what has been written. And the story also features two extremely endearing and relatable characters who you can’t help rooting for.

The Four Profound Weaves is queer as hell and fluid as hell and refuses to let anything stand in the way of what we can be, no matter is that means going up against an all-powerful dictator, the gender expectations of our family and friends, or even the world itself.

This is both a joy of a book and a joy of a reading experience. I came away feeling more healed than when I started. I won’t pretend one book can solve all the world’s problems, but The Four Profound Weaves was definitely the book I needed to read right now in my life. I think many other readers will respond the same way.

I expect I’ll reread The Four Profound Weaves over and over in the years to come. The novella will also be among my nominations for the upcoming Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.

There is always a path forward. Unfortunately, many times we can’t see it until something brings our eyes back to where we’re walking.

The Four Profound Weaves illuminates for all of us the path forward.

Giveaway for "The Eight-Thousanders"

Jason Sanford — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:50:33 +0000

My short story "The Eight-Thousanders" is out in the Sept./Oct. 2020 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. The story focuses on the ethical issues surrounding mountain climbing and the destructive tech bro attitudes found within elite industries.

Or tl;dr: VAMPIRE ON MOUNT EVEREST!

If you want to read more about the story, the Asimov’s blog did an interview with me about it including the story’s origins and my thoughts on masculinity (which, spoiler, is a major plot point of the story).

Copies of the magazine are currently available in bookstores and digital marketplaces.

I’m also giving away 10 signed copies of the Sept./Oct. issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, plus a few digital copies, as thanks to my readers.

If you want to take part in the drawing for these copies, complete this form.

NASFiC 2020 virtual convention schedule

Jason Sanford — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 12:14:40 +0000

The North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) starts Friday, August 21 and runs through Sunday, August 23. Originally slated to be held in Columbus, Ohio, this year’s NASFiC is now totally virtual. And best of all, it’s free for people to attend and take part!

I’ll be taking part in the three sessions below during the convention. For more information and to take part, go to columbus2020nasfic.org.

Office Hours with Jason Sanford
Friday August 21 , 5:00-7:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
I will answer questions about getting published, places to get published and so on. This is your chance to ask me any questions about the many topics I cover in my Genre Grapevine column.

The Future of Anthologies
Saturday August 22, 11:00 am (Eastern Daylight Time)
Moderator: Jason Sanford
Panelists: Dominik Parisien, Lucy A. Snyder, and Neil Clarke
Our highly-regarded panel of editors discuss current trends in and future of anthologies.

Weathering the Storm: Creating in Times of Trouble
Saturday August 22 , 8:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
Moderator: Jason Sanford
Panelists: Ace Ratcliff, Amanda Makepeace, John Medaille, John Wiswell, Raven Oak
Description: A mixed panel of writers and artists discuss the challenges of making art and stories during a pandemic, as well as strategies for managing health and being active creators.

I look forward to seeing everyone there.