Words for Worlds - Issue LXV

Hello everyone, and welcome to another (belated!) issue of Words for Worlds.

First up, the big news: this has been in the works for a while, and now it’s been formally announced: my third SF novel is coming out with Westland Books, in September 2024. It is called THE SENTENCE, and is a stand-alone story, set in a secondary world (unrelated to the world of The Wall and The Horizon). Here are the promo slides for the acquisition announcement:

There will, of course, be more details (cover, blurb, ARCs etc.) as we get closer to the publication date: this is just the initial acquisition announcement. At present, the novel will be published and available in the South Asian territories. Once I’m done with the final publishers’ edits, I’ll look to querying it abroad, although my previous record is not exactly confidence-inspiring on that front! For now, though, the next steps are finishing edits, and then thinking about the fun parts, like the cover, and the marketing!

A couple of other pieces of news. I’d mentioned in the last newsletter that voting for the British Science Fiction Association [BSFA] was on; I was recently quite pleasantly surprised to learn that my long-listed essay on world-building in SF - “Weaving the Rainbow” - has made it to the final-six shortlist in the non-fiction (short) category. BSFA members can vote until the end of the month, and the winners will be announced at Eastercon - one of those moments you feel the keen edge of the global passport rankings, but so it goes!

Finally, my conversation with Aditya Sudarshan about his new SF novel - Idolatry - which was organised by IIHS, is now on Youtube, and accessible here.

What I’m Reading/Watching

I’m at that stage of novel edits where you’re almost entirely immersed in writing, with very little mind-space for reading outside your text, but I did recently get around to starting Jeremy Tiang’s State of Emergency, a novel set in and around the independence of Singapore, and the repression of the left-wing movement of the time. I’m around 80 pages in, and it’s been excellent so far: not only do we so rarely get to read fiction out of Singapore, but this is political fiction done brilliantly: given the context and the location, it is reminding me of both Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer and Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound, albeit with a very different stylistic register.

My interest was piqued when I saw the trailer for Shōgun, given my fascination for all things Japanese (you and the rest of the world, I hear you say!). Of course, a premise that involves a white Englishman washing up on the shores of pre-Edo era Japan and working his way up to samurai status, can go all types of wrong; but in Shōgun, so far, it hasn’t: John Blackthorne, the character, does not occupy a smidgen more space than is strictly necessary, and the story never feels as if it is a vehicle for the Blackthorne’s character arc. Rather, Blackthorne is simply one among many characters milling upon the stage, all of whom are fascinating and compelling in their own right. I’d definitely recommend this one, if you have even a passing interest in historical fantasy, or even history!

The Indian Scene

Nothing stirring this week.

What’s Happening at Strange Horizons

Tanvir Ahmed’s essay in February’s non-fiction issue - “A Letter Dispatched from the Hills of Afghulistan and the Ramparts of Tarouz” - is one the best explorations of orientalism in contemporary SF that I’ve read recently (and especially relevant, given the events happening around us, and how they’re articulated).

His analysis of Guy Gavriel Kay’s work, and the references that inform it, portray a writer who was one of my childhood favourites (he must have beens some of yours as well!) in an entirely new light; if you’ve ever enjoyed Kay, do make sure you read this piece (along with reading it for all the other good reasons as well!).

Recommendations Corner

Indian SF-graphic novels are not yet quite a thing, so it’s been great to see Dream Machine - co-authored by Laurent Daudet and Appupen - hit the shelves. I picked up a copy at the Mathrubhoomi Literature Festival at Trivandrum last month, and there was an event with the authors at Alliance Française in Delhi on March 1. The event was fun, other than the inevitable audience question about AI replacing judges; it was interesting though, in the sense that the authors’ portrayal of AI (without giving anything away) is bound to be extremely controversial. Controversy apart though, this one holds its own with SF-graphic novels from across the world, so if that’s your thing, go get a copy!