Sue Burke's Blog, page 14

‘Dual Memory’ has been launched

My new novel, Dual Memory, has now spent two weeks out in the wild world! Thank you to Volumes Bookcafé for hosting the launch, to Richard Chwedyk for leading a conversation with me at the launch, and to my husband, Jerry Finn, for all his support. And thanks to everyone who has bought it, and especially those who have reviewed it. Reader reviews at places like Amazon, Goodreads, and LibraryThing, and word of mouth, are the only sure way to sell books.

Paul Semel interviewed me for his site about Dual Memory, and among his other questions: What inspired the novel? How did Par Augustus get its name? Would the story make a good game? (As a game, I think it would ruin friendships.)

During the discussion at Volumes, I remembered that one of the novel’s characters, so to speak, the Marathon Building, was inspired by an incident that stuck with me from another science fiction work, 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future. This is a serialized multimedia narrative by Jon Bois. In Chapter 19, the machines in the story share a eulogy for “our dearest ancestor.” But read the entire story! It’s free online. 17776 is a daring experiment in storytelling, and you don’t need to like football to enjoy its wild inventiveness.

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By the way, if you’re at Goodreads and you haven’t read Semiosis yet, here’s your chance to get the book for free. Five copies are up for grabs. Giveaway closes June 6. Limited to United States. Sign up here.

And the tree was happy…

“And so the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy… but not really.”

— From The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, 1964.

A secret seventh-grade history lesson

My junior high school had a scandalous “secret” that older students would melodramatically point out to incoming seventh-graders. The hallway floors in one of the buildings was edged with decorative glazed tiles in bright colors. On the first floor near the office, amid tiles depicting anchors, lions, birds, shields, and other motifs, there was a swastika!

Oh, no! Why?

The answer involved a history lesson. The swastika symbol was old, older than Nazis and World War II. Nazis didn’t invent it, they only used it. Our building was older than the Nazis, so when it was built, the ancient symbol had seemed innocent, just like the lions and anchors.

We learned a lot in those buildings. In my case, classes included Spanish, algebra, geometry, civics, literature, art, home economics, and gym. But in the hallways, thanks to that scandalous tile, we also learned a lesson about the world:

The meanings of things change over time, and the past holds surprises.

We also wondered why we were attending school in such old, decrepit buildings. This wasn’t just us kids whining, since teachers and parents had the same question. These buildings were genuine fire traps. At some point — I can’t find out exactly when — the buildings were torn down and replaced by a new middle school elsewhere in the city.

My old junior high school was so unloved that I cannot find a single photo of the buildings on the internet. All I could find were tiles (see photo) in the Men’s Gymnasium, built in 1917, at Indiana University. They seem to have come from the same set of patterns as the ones at my junior high school.

The tiled floor at my old school with the swastika has disappeared. It has become history, a memory with a lesson about history itself.

And the world keeps changing.

Goodreads giveaway of ‘Semiosis’ and launch day for ‘Dual Memory’

If you’re at Goodreads and you haven’t read Semiosis yet, here’s your chance to get the book for free. Five copies are up for grabs. Giveaway closes June 6. Limited to United States. Sign up here.

Semiosis is included in the article “The Best Science Fiction Books About Aliens” by Jamie Green posted this month at Five Books.

Meanwhile, my latest book, Dual Memory, goes on sale today! Available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook at all major retailers, and if you buy the hardcover book from Volumes Bookcafé, I can autograph it for you.

If you’re in Chicago, I can autograph it in person for you tonight, 6:30 p.m., at Volumes Bookstore Café, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., in the Wicker Park neighborhood. I’ll be chatting with Richard Chwedyk, another science fiction author and an entertaining raconteur. It will be fun.

“Dual Memory” is an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for May

Amazon likes my book! Dual Memory is one of the Best Books of the Month: Science Fiction & Fantasy @ Amazon.com.

If you order the dead tree book from Volumes Bookcafé, I can autograph it for you. The book is available May 16, and there will be a launch party here in Chicago at Volumes that evening.

You can also buy it from your own friendly neighborhood bookstore and all major retailers. Links are here where it says “Buy Now.”

You can read the first chapter at the publisher’s website.

SFF Addicts: A Masterclass on Revision and Rewriting

I don’t know if I’m a master at revision and rewriting, but I hate writing first drafts. I have to bribe myself to get through them. Once I have something to work with, though, I love to edit, revise, and rewrite. I think it’s where the magic happens.

Adrian M. Gibson and M.J. Kuhn, co-hosts of the SFF Addicts Podcast, and I talk about techniques I’ve learned over 50 years of professional writing (I started very young) that might help you with your writing. Every project is different, so the more techniques you know, the better.

Available today, May 9, in audio and video. Watch/stream/download it:

https://fanfiaddict.com/sff-addicts-ep-52-revision-rewriting/

http://linktr.ee/SFFAddicts

http://youtu.be/M3l14AwEZ58

Any questions, ask in the comments. Thanks!

Audible sale of “Semiosis”

Audible’s Off the Charts sale, May 8 to 12, includes the Semiosis audiobook.

Thanks for a great reading to narrators Caitlin Davies and Daniel Thomas May!

My vote for the Nebula Award Best Novella

For the past 58 years, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has presented the Nebula Awards. The finalists for the best works in 2022 in seven categories have been announced. The awards will be presented in a ceremony on Sunday, May 14, streaming live from Anaheim, CA, as part of the 2023 Nebula Conference Online. Winners are determined by the vote of SFWA members.

I’m a member of SFWA, and I’ve read all the works in the novella category, 17,500 to 40,000 words. None of them are romances per se, but love has a place in the plots. Here are my impressions and my vote. If you can, read them for yourself.

“Bishop’s Opening” by R.S.A. Garcia (Clarkesworld 1/22) – The crew of a space ship, a romantic triad, gets dragged into a planet’s deadly political games. Innocence could be a successful gambit, along with forgiveness.

I Never Liked You Anyway by Jordan Kurella (Vernacular) – Love at its most foolish. Emo music students at a college reiterate the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. While they can’t avoid tragedy, Hades, the king of the dead, has godlike wisdom and compassion, which might rescue the afterlife.

High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson (Tordotcom) – A scribe gets sent to record tense and desperate debates that, if not resolved, will result in disaster. Then she falls in love. Genuinely funny, light-hearted, and light-weight, in a good way. Expect shenanigans, not a treatise on governance.

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk (Tordotcom) – In Chicago in the 1930s, the “White City Vampire” seems to be an ordinary serial killer, but a private detective knows that a lot more is at stake — more than she thinks, in fact. Can she protect her beloved? Demons, warlocks, and angels keep the plot twisting and turning.

My vote: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom) – Monk and Robot — that is, Dex and Mosscap — travel together and slowly tackle more and more complex (or simple, depending on your viewpoint) philosophical questions. You’ll see the love: a lot of love in all directions.

I was torn between voting for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy and Even Though I Knew the End, and the originality of Becky Chambers’ story won me over. But you may reach a very different conclusion, and in keeping with Monk and Robot’s theme of acceptance, that would be just fine. We all love reading, and that’s what matters.

SFF Addicts and I talk and laugh a lot

Adrian M. Gibson and M.J. Kuhn, co-hosts of the SFF Addicts Podcast, chat with me in Episode 51 about my next book, Dual Memory. We also discuss plant consciousness, since I’m very fond of plants even though they’re murderous. Then they ask me about book launch jitters, which I’m not at all fond of but I very much have.

Available today, May 2, in audio and video:

http://linktr.ee/SFFAddicts

http://youtube.com/@FanFiAddict

Dual Memory will be released on May 16. If you’re in Chicago, come to the launch party at Volumes Bookcafé, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., in the Wicker Park neighborhood, at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 16, and witness my jitters. If you can’t come, you can order the book through Volumes and request an autograph, and I’d be delighted to sign a book to you personally.

My vote for the Nebula Award Best Novelette

For the past 58 years, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has presented the Nebula Awards. The finalists for the best works in 2022 in seven categories have been announced, and the awards will be presented in a ceremony on Sunday, May 14, streaming live from Anaheim, CA, as part of the 2023 Nebula Conference Online. Winners are determined by the vote of SFWA members.

I’m a member of SFWA, and I’ve read all the works in the novelette category, which is 7,500 to 17,500 words. Every nominee in this category could reasonably win the Nebula.

They vary so widely that they could also serve as a quick survey of the breadth of current science fiction and fantasy in style as well as subject. Past, present, and future. Here, there, and nowhere. Love, courage, and honesty. Heart-warming, heart-breaking, and heart-stopping. Here are my impressions and my vote. If you can, read them for yourself.

“Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold” by S.B. Divya (Uncanny 5–6/22) – Everything a boy touches turns to gold, which is a curse, not a blessing, and as an adult, he tries to use it to do something good and loving. Two cultures and two histories clash in the story — no spoilers, but it will become obvious in a satisfying way.

“A Dream of Electric Mothers” by Wole Talabi (Africa Risen anthology) – Technology manages to make tradition come true: ancestors can be consulted. But should their messages be trusted? Time and place, character and theme mesh to bring the answer.

“The Prince of Salt and the Ocean’s Bargain” by Natalia Theodoridou (Uncanny 9/22) – Salt in the sea wishes to live and becomes a man, or so the story is told. Living turns out to be complicated. A twist at the end fulfills the story, which manages to be timeless and placeless and yet convey a universal meaning.

“Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness” by S.L. Huang (Clarkesworld 12/22) – Can an AI unintentionally become a killer? Using the format of a magazine article, this story has the creepy feel of our present-day reality more than science fiction. It even has footnotes.

“We Built This City” by Marie Vibbert (Clarkesworld 6/22) – Workers maintaining the dome over a city on Venus fight for their right to do their job in reasonable working conditions. Science fiction is always about the present.

My vote: “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You” by John Chu (Uncanny 7–8/22) – Can you be friends with a superhero? Can a superhero solve one of today’s ugliest problems? John Chu explores these questions with a tender, breakable heart, and emotional honesty suffuses every sentence.