From Earth to the Stars

Sean Monaghan returns to the pages of Asimov’s with his latest space adventure, “Wildest Skies,” available now in our [November/December issue, on sale now!] In this enlightening Q&A, learn more about the movies and books that inspired Sean to write science fiction.

Asimov’s Editor: Is this story part of a larger universe, or is it stand-alone?
Sean Monaghan: To answer the question in a round-about way, I’m old enough to remember when the movie Alien came out, though young enough that its age restriction in New Zealand meant that I had to wait a few years before I got to see it. When I heard there was a sequel on the way, even as a teenager, I wondered how they might go about that. The film had had such an impact on me, that I couldn’t picture a movie where they Did The Same All Over Again would beat all interesting. I was impressed then, when Aliens came out, that it took the story in a whole new direction.
When I first embarked on “Wildest Skies,” I just wanted to write a fun adventure story with a character in a sticky situation. And it was a big story, covering a lot of ground and using a lot of words.
Ed Linklater’s story seemed to have been told.
But then my subconscious imagination held onto things and I found myself writing more stories with Ed. Taking him in, I think, different directions. And as the publication date in Asimov’s approached, I realized that all of the stories so far are prequel stories. There’s one about him and the crew training right before they leave on the mission (“Spindle Shatters”), and one about him looking for a job on Mars (“Martian Job Offer”) and even one with him as teen, about the age I was when I first missed out on seeing Alien, going with his family to see his first live rocket launch (“Launch Treat”).
Some of the stories are available now on my website and elsewhere, and some are out under consideration with publishers.
So yes, the novella “Wildest Skies” has turned out to be part of a larger universe, one that’s varied and distinct, but still, I hope, fun and full of adventure.
And all that said, I do wonder to myself if now that “Wildest Skies” is out in the world, will my imagination send me off writing sequel stories? What happens to Ed after the events on Dashell IV? I don’t know, but I kind of hope to find out.

AE: How did you break into writing?
SM: Back when I was first at university, oh so long ago, the English department published a vaguely annual anthology of local writing. I duly wrote a story and sent it in and was stunned when the print edition of the anthology arrived in my letterbox, with my story among the contents. Since then I’ve learned that editors generally make contact and send contracts before publication, but still, that was so uplifting and validating and gave me a vague kind of confidence to keep going. It took a while before further publications came my way, but now I seem to have reasonably steady stream of them happening, which is heartening.

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I do wonder to myself if now that “Wildest Skies” is out in the world, will my imagination send me off writing sequel stories? What happens to Ed after the events on Dashell IV? I don’t know, but I kind of hope to find out.

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AE: Do you have any advice for up and coming writers?
SM: Write.
I think that the venerable Mr. Heinlein said this many years ago. “You must write.” I think that any success I’ve had has come out of spending time in my writing chair and just writing. Practice, I guess.
The more you do it, well, chances are, the better you’ll get. I’ve met numerous writers who think about writing, or would like to write, or just get too busy, which is fine, but actually writing something is the key.
There’s also loads of advice out there about how to write, and I think another key is to find what works for you and go with that.

AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
SM: I write space adventure, plain and simple. I’m inspired by my reading from when I was a teen and our local secondhand bookstores were filled from floor to ceiling with battered and bruised paperbacks from the forties and fifties and sixties and seventies. I would shell out every last cent of my pocket money on a Friday night, buying up too many slim paperbacks.
Silverberg and E.E. Doc Smith and Asimov and Sheckley and Kern and Heinlein and Herbert and other less well-known names. Old copies of magazines like If and Galaxy and Amazing Stories. Some of those books were pretty explicit for a poor naive thirteen year old. Some of them failed to avoid mysogyny and racism and other things that would rightly and rapidly lead to cancellation in the here and now.
Many of them, though, from the more sophisticated writers, met those issues head on. After all, science fiction envisions a better future, and equality and tolerance were themes that I would like to think helped to shape the world as the modern era unfolded.
But it was the adventure I thrived on. Being able to visit distant worlds and contend with challenges of hostile environments and broken spaceships and dictatorial governments.
I would devour those books and return the following week for more.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing?
SM: My main website is www.seanmonaghan.com, but for this story there’s a special site with some of the other stories at www.wildestskies.com. On rare occasions I show up on facebook.com/seanmonaghanauthor, and sometimes at www.seanmonaghan.blog.
Thanks for the chance to participate in the blog.

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Sean Monaghan writes from a nook in the corner of his 100 year old home in provincial New Zealand. His stories have appeared before in Asimov’s and also in Analog, as well as numerous other publications.

R. P. Sand makes her Asimov’s debut with her new piece “Eternity is Moments”, available to read in our [September/October issue, on sale now!]

Asimov’s Editor: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly?
R. P. Sand: Writing this story was one of the very rare occasions for me where the story basically flowed from the initial spark. A few hours after my maternal grandfather died, I heard a line in my head: “I met my grandfather today.”
I couldn’t shake it, even though it felt like nonsense — of course I hadn’t met my grandfather that day! He died in a completely different city, far from me. I was bereft.
But the thought persisted, so I decided to write it down. And then I just kept writing. The words flowed and I had a first draft in my hands far quicker than I ever had before.
Working on this story over the span of the next week or so helped me process my own grief and the tangle of emotions that come along with the death of someone you loved very much but with whom you had a complicated relationship. As strange as this may sound, I feel he was with me in a way.

AE: Is this story part of a larger universe, or is it stand-alone?
RPS: This story is a piece of a larger future history I am mapping for Earth, and I have several stories in this universe both published and in the works.
My three far future novelettes in Clarkesworld are part of this universe. The stories “Ask the Fireflies” and “An Ode to Stardust” depict humans living in a consortium of planets called the Archipelago. The third story, “The Last Civilian,” is also a part of this far future, but tells the tale of a starship that was lost before the humans reached the Archipelago.
Those humans are the descendants of the humans who leave our dwindling Earth. “Eternity is Moments” is about those who are left behind.

AE: How did the title for this piece come to you?
RPS: Death was very much on my mind when titling this piece. It struck me how an entire life with a myriad complicated connections, experiences, and emotions can effectively disappear in the moments of death. In mere instants, a person shifts from actively engaging with this world and influencing things around them to becoming inert. All that’s left are passive memories in other people’s thoughts.
I’ve heard the phrase “eternity in moments” to describe a portrayal of vastness in a short span of time. I use a depiction like this in the story by essentially compressing an entire woman’s life into a few select scenes. However, as a title it still didn’t feel right.
Because, no, our own eternity is moments, really. What we perceive to be Big Eternal Things in our lives are just moments in the grand scheme of things.

AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
RPS: I tend to use writing speculative fiction as a means to process and understand the world around me. So I veer more towards exploring connections and interactions through character-driven storytelling, at least that is my aim. Connections can be with the self or with others, including non-humans. Writing about non-human connections works equally well in helping me understand connections in our real world.
Thus, my through-lines include identity, mental health, and many different forms of love, not only romantic.
And a silly little challenge I gave myself at the start of my writing career was to insert a cat in every story, either literally or figuratively. Because I adore cats and am owned by three. In this story, the daughters of the protagonist wear pastel cat-eared gas masks. A tiny detail, but it tickled me nonetheless.

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Because of this ebb and flow, creativity feels like an active, living, breathing entity to me. I view it as a lover of sorts, as cheesy as that may sound. It deserves to be nurtured just like any other relationship you want permanently in your life.

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AE: If you could choose one science-fictional universe to live in, what universe would it be, and why?
RPS: The Star Trek universe, hands down. I yearn for a future like that, where humans have finally evolved beyond prejudice, hatred, and capitalism. No more wars, no more climate emergencies, amazing strides in medicine. Just an era of kindness, curiosity, and exploration.

AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
RPS: I would say take each piece of advice you hear with a pinch of salt. Adapt it to make it your own and see what works for you, without the pressure of comparing how it has helped other writers. Experiment as much as you can, and don’t hesitate to let go of systems that no longer serve you as your own process evolves.
Having said that, I will share something that helped me at the beginning of the publishing phase of my writing journey for anyone who may resonate: write short fiction! Even if your goal is longer fiction, you can experiment so beautifully within the realm of short fiction. You can play with styles and voices and other elements that may be otherwise tedious or difficult to commit to in longer forms. This type of play will help hone your craft, even if you don’t want to stick to short fiction.
I wrote with novels in mind for most of my life, but when I discovered the delights of short fiction I decided to stay in this realm for a while. I may still write a novel one day, but I’m in no hurry.

AE: How do you deal with writers’ block?
RPS: Well, my immediate, instinctive reaction is to curl up into a ball and question my existence. But! I eventually remember that being hard on myself will only make it worse. I then actively remind myself that I deserve the same grace I’d extend to any other artist struggling with their art. A writer friend of mine likes to say that creatives sometimes need to breathe in and sometimes they need to breathe out and that is perfectly okay.
Because of this ebb and flow, creativity feels like an active, living, breathing entity to me. I view it as a lover of sorts, as cheesy as that may sound. It deserves to be nurtured just like any other relationship you want permanently in your life.
So, I actively court creativity. Depending on what’s going on in my life, this may look different. But I essentially do creative things with my hands like crafts and builds without the pressure of the result needing to be good or for profit, or even shared with another human. And I immerse myself in stories, not only by consuming fiction in all its forms (prose, cinema, games, etc.) but by seeking out interesting people and experiences, learning about psychology and history and mythology, and more. And then inspiration strikes at an unexpected moment and I’m breathing out again.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing? (IE: Social media handles, website URL…)
RPS: You can find me at rpsand.com. I also occasionally appear on Twitter/X (https://x.com/RadhaPyari) and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/radhapyari.bsky.social).

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R.P. Sand <rpsand.com> is a theoretical physicist turned science communicator and educator, and writer of speculative fiction whose words in Clarkesworld have made the Locus Recommended Reading List. Cats, coffee, cosplay, and colorful socks are a few of her favorite things. Her first story for Asimov’s takes a deep dive into science and the truth about some complex family relationships.    

Betsy Aoki makes her Asimov’s fiction debut in our [September/October issue, on sale now!] In our interview with Betsy, find out why she believes community is so important for writers, and discover how this latest story pays homage to her Japanese-American family members who were interned during World War II

Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
Betsy Aoki: I was taking a few months’ sabbatical from the game industry and set myself a challenge to write some new fiction. My Clarion West classmate, Cadwell Turnbull, had just started pitching the Many Worlds writers collective, with a shared multiverse framework and I was determined to write something for the collective as a member.
“And To Their Shining Palaces Go” was originally supposed to be a short story but, well, it got longer and longer the more I realized how complicated the setting was.
(Besides this story in Asimov’s, and fiction published on the Many Worlds web site, Many World stories can be found in the 2023 anthology Many Worlds: Or, the Simulacra. Under the pen name Darkly Lem, several members have gone on to sell a Many Worlds multiverse novel to be published in 2025.)

AE: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly?
BA: It began to germinate for me emotionally with the idea of the Shining Palaces—the lure of being in a beautiful place working with beautiful/genius people and receiving the societal status to go along with that. The feeling that one is doing the most important and coolest creative work of one’s life, in a place where just being there as a worker bee gains you societal approval.  And that work is done in a culture where it is expected you will spend all your time and juice to create worlds for others to believe in.
The Alariel simulation’s resemblance to the game industry is of course, entirely coincidental . . .
The Alariel’s brutal approach to productivity is more understandable when you realize they resemble giant, swarming praying mantises and don’t really understand human psychology.  Their interest in statistically proven behaviors is due to the fact I have worked as both a marketer and a technical program manager for Bing, the search engine. Search engines at that time did a lot of A/B testing where a feature would be killed if it failed to create the right clickthrough behaviors in a test segment of the audience. To keep the feature online you had to prove the correct behaviors were happening with statistical significance.
I also wanted to pay homage to the Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II (members of my family, including my father, went to camp), so I made the main character and her family of that lineage. Being sent to a “special place with walls around it” hits differently with certain backgrounds and of course generations close to the historical event and farther away from it will react differently. 

AE: Is this story part of a larger universe, or is it stand-alone?
BA: This story is definitely standalone, but sits within the Many Worlds multiverse. My alien race, the Alariel, have misunderstood some of the things they learned about the Simulacrum from a wandering member of the Arcalumis, and, well, as a result they became obsessed with simulations as well as finding means to allow them to transit the multiverse. That obsession to swarm all the things leads them to a history of taking over places like Earth, and this story is what happens after that conquest.

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“And To Their Shining Palaces Go” was originally supposed to be a short story but, well, it got longer and longer the more I realized how complicated the setting was.

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AE: What is your process?
BA: Because I have always a busy day job (tech or games), writing tends to happen weekends and vacations (or if very lucky, a writing residency). I don’t strive for a specific word count though I know some folks have had success with that.

AE: How do you deal with writers’ block?
BA: The pandemic and then the death of my mom meant I just wasn’t up to writing at various points. In this case, mental health/grief processing has to come first before you can “deal” with the block. Your brain is a wonderful thing, and can grind on, but it will start wearing down and smoking and burning out if not careful. I think if the writing block is because of life events, you have to roll with that and trust your psyche will come back to the writing.

AE: What other projects are you currently working on?
BA: After my debut poetry collection, Breakpoint, launched in 2022 I did a lot of book promotion and am glad to now be in more of a writing phase. I have a second poetry manuscript I need to flesh out, and I continue to try and improve my short fiction writing.
Projects with others include helping out with the Many Worlds collective, and also serving as poetry editor for Uncanny Magazine. My household also recently adopted two quasi-teleporting kittens who will serve to be a project in and of themselves.

AE: What are you reading right now?
BA: Just finished these three:

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi (fantastic sexy caper novel)

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (complex worldbuilding, amazing characters and sense of magic behind every door)

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (Cozy horror and love story all in one)

Now I am rereading for prose craft: This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I am about to read these two for poetry craft:

The Selected Shepherd: Poems By Reginald Shepherd

Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss

AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
BA: You don’t have to go so far as to join a collective but it’s good to have a community—a critique group, a bunch of writer friends interested in the same writing you are, and of course that essential friend group to have: non-writers. Let yourself be dorky and reach out to create with others.
In fiction or in poetry, study the form, and read widely to understand how people are making authorial choices they do. Are they taking risks you want to take? Are they creating space for you to spread your wings and fly there? Study how they do it. Do it.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing?
BA: Folks can best reach me directly via the web form at https://www.betsyaoki.com . I am on twitter, Bluesky, and Mastodon but erratically across each.

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Betsy Aoki is a poet, game producer, and graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. A Rhysling Award nominee, she won the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York, selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown. Her debut poetry collection, Breakpoint was a National Poetry Series Finalist and winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Aoki’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Fireside Magazine, The Deadlands, Translunar Travellers Lounge, and anthologized in Climbing Lightly Through Forests (a Ursula K. Le Guin tribute poetry anthology).

Marisca Pichette makes her Asimov’s debut with two poems in our [September/October issue, on sale now!] Where one poem deals with “transcendence and eternal connection,” the other “looks at apocalypse in miniature.”

Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind these poems?
Marisca Pichette: “All the space you have left” is a poem about love and loss. While these themes could be tragic, I find a deep comfort in this piece. The narrator isn’t looking for acceptance or forgiveness. Rather, it’s a poem about transcendence and eternal connection.
“In a vial on the windowsill you’ll find it” looks at apocalypse in miniature. The small things, the everyday changes, the mundanity of grief. Part nostalgia, part letter to a love that never was, it’s a poem to hold and be held, to remember and wonder and—despite everything—hope.

AE: How did these poems germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly? 
MP: “All the space you have left” appears here almost exactly as I initially drafted it. For this poem, the body came first as a story, and I titled it at the end. This isn’t always the case with my work. Many of my poems are shaped by the title first. This piece, though, has much to say about beginnings and endings.
“In a vial on the windowsill you’ll find it” took a long time to form. It was initially two stanzas shorter, and lacked a clear focus for a long time. I sensed what I was trying to do, but it took several rounds of re-reading and revision to finally arrive at the story that appears here.

AE: How did the titles for these poems come to you?
MP: “All the space you have left” can be read in two ways. It could be the narrator speaking to the departed, as in the body of the piece. Or—and I like this more—it can be read as a final goodbye from their ghost: Here is my body: changed, dwindled, and all that now remains of what we once had.
I don’t really remember how the title for “In a vial on the windowsill you’ll find it” came about. I think I wrote it at the beginning, followed by the poem. In this way, it acted like the vial of letters lost: a vessel of words to explore.

AE: What is your history with Asimov’s?
MP: This is my first appearance in Asimov’s!

AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
MP: From the time I began writing, I’ve been especially inspired by the natural landscape and its history. Many hours have been spent wandering the woods with a journal and a heart full of wonder. Some authors who continue to inspire me are: Anne McCaffrey, VE Schwab, Ocean Vuong, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Erin Morgenstern, Theodora Goss, and many more.

AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
MP: Themes of loss, isolation, wonder, and absurdity pervade my work, often interwoven with climate concerns and an animate natural landscape. In poetry in particular, I deal a lot with my own anger at injustice, straying frequently into body horror and the weird. I think poetry is a useful tool for addressing issues directly and succinctly, free from the veil of fiction.

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From the time I began writing, I’ve been especially inspired by the natural landscape and its history. Many hours have been spent wandering the woods with a journal and a heart full of wonder.

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AE: What is your process?
MP: My process with poetry is amorphous. I am fascinated with etymology and keep a list of words and phrases that intrigue me. When I go to write a poem, I consult this list and see what grabs me. Usually, I’m able to collect a few of my target words into a single piece. As I write, a narrative emerges from the mix.

AE: What are you reading right now?
MP: I am currently reading KT Bryski’s novella, Lovely Creatures, which was published by Psychopomp this spring.

AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
MP: Don’t give in. Seriously. Whatever your threshold for rejection, double or quadruple it. This business is finicky and everything is in constant flux. You can’t judge your work based on form rejections and long wait times. The best you can do for yourself is write what you want to write and put your whole will behind your work. Trust me—whether it takes a year or a decade—your writing will find its intended home.

AE: What other careers have you had, and how have they affected your writing?
MP: I’ve worked a lot in education—particularly with museums and independent schools—and these have continued to kindle my curiosity in a range of subjects. If you find a day job that fuels your creativity rather than draining it, seize that chance. Your writing might have to get squeezed into off-hours, but as long as you have energy and inspiration to continue, your work will find a way.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing? (IE: Social media handles, website URL . . .)
MP: Find links to my work, readings, interviews, and subscribe to my newsletter at: www.mariscapichette.com. I can also be found on Twitter/X (@MariscaPichette), Bluesky (@marisca.bsky.social), and Instagram (@marisca_write).

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Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts, on Pocumtuck and Abenaki land. Find her work in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Vastarien, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, The Deadlands, Nightmare Magazine, and others. She is the flash winner of the 2022 F(r)iction Spring Literary Contest and has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Pushcart, Best of the Net, Elgin, Utopia, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars awards. Her debut collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. 

by Stephen R. Case

Stephen R. Case lays out the ideas that inspired the universe in his story “Sisters of the Flare,” now available in our [July/August issue, on sale now!]

A few years ago I began drafting a story about a religious order, ships that were huge cathedrals in space, and a super-luminal Lattice that allowed them to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. It was a sort of mirror image to the grimdark future of fictions like the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I wanted a galactic empire of humanity, which I called the Instrumentatum, that was bright, ordered, and at peace. In my universe, the empress (who may or may not be a god but is worshipped as one) rules from Holy Hearth, and her sisters of mercy travel the stars as emissaries, traders, and sometimes enforcers of her will. Like the galactic empire of Asimov’s Foundation, it’s an anthropo-exclusive cosmos: though humanity has spread across millions of worlds, it has encountered no other intelligent life recognized as such.

The key to this empire, and to the empress’s control over it, is the super-luminal system of travel: the Lattice, a network of conduits carved beneath space (so legends say) by the empress herself at the dawn of the Instrumentatum, before Earth became Hearth. Those who travel the Lattice don’t understand the technology behind it, but pilots on each cathedral-ship know how to steer their vast vessels down these corridors of light. The Lattice stitches together all the worlds of the galaxy. For a hundred generations the sisterhood has traveled up and down the Lattice, recruiting novices from the worlds they call upon.

Each of the empress’s cathedral-ship is a vast honeycomb of sacristies, libraries, chapels, workstations, and mosaiced landing bays built around a core that houses a cluster of miniature, tethered stars powering each ship. Gravity on these huge vessels is partially artificial, referred to by the sisters as “guiding hands,” providing inertial stability and in the bowels of each ship tightly binding the coiled star-heart fusion cores. Hundreds of different specialties of sisters go about their work under the direction of each ship’s Mother Superior, from the venerated pilots to the gardeners (genetically modified to walk the hulls tending the delicate sensor-gardens) to the eremites living in the caverns of the interior tending the fires of the fusion cores to sisters who pass their lives in study, contemplation, or prayer.

Two gifts make the sisterhood’s work in this universe possible. The first is the Lattice, which it seems is theirs alone to traverse. The second is the chemical known as the Calm, which sisters begin to take when they have been fully inducted into the order. The Calm deadens emotions and passion, thus (the sisters claim) opening the path to true prayer and contemplation. It also extends life so that a sister becomes effectively immortal, an eternal passenger on a cathedral-ship’s centuries-long travels. On worlds across the galaxy, children imagine a cathedral-ship coasting into their system from a Lattice terminal and offering to a handful of their planet’s best and brightest the gift of dispassion and immortality.

It was a bright, ordered cosmos, but my stories focus on characters trying to make sense of their universe after this ordered structure has been shattered. At some point, shortly before my stories begin, the Instrumentatum makes contact with a new kind of life at the fringes of the galaxy. Not an alien race, not an invasion, but rather an infection: a catalytic process that attacks planets themselves as a virus attacks cells, reducing entire worlds to dust-like spores. The galaxy, the sisterhood has realized, is diseased.

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It was a bright, ordered cosmos, but my stories focus on characters trying to make sense of their universe after this ordered structure has been shattered.

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In response, the empress orders the Long Retreat, calling all cathedral-ships back to Hearth. If the spreading infection, which may naturally take millions of years to spread from system to system, reaches the Lattice, it could allow the infection to quickly jump from inhabited world to inhabited world, like a cancer metastasizing. To slow its spread, the empress waits as long as possible and then does the unthinkable and erases the Lattice from space.

For the sisters on the Hearth-bound cathedral-ships, this is as unimaginable as losing the sky itself. Ships en route fall from the Lattice back into normal space, possibly trillions of miles from any star or habitable planet. Where there had been an Instrumentatum linking the galaxy, now there are only planets isolated by light-years and cathedral-ships marooned in space with no means of super-luminal travel.

My stories—the first, “Daughters of the Lattice,” appearing in Asimov’s a year ago and the second, “Sisters of the Flare,” in this issues—are set on the cathedral-ship Decalogue, which finds itself marooned when the Lattice disappears. The characters on board find themselves asking difficult questions in this new reality: What’s the point of living forever if you may not reach a habitable planet for a hundred thousand years? And even if you do, is immortality on a single world anything but a prison sentence? What do the virtues of prayer and obedience mean when your god has abandoned you? How do you create a new life when your vocation no longer has any meaning? If it was possible, would you bring children into such a radically transformed world?

“Daughters of the Lattice” picked up the story once the Decalogue had found and settled a marginally habitable planet, following a set of characters who realize there might be a way to re-open the Lattice, though at the potential cost of whatever tentative safety they have found. The story in this issue, “Sisters of the Flare,” steps backward in time to tell the story of life on the Decalogue in the immediate wake of the Lattice’s collapse. A rebellious sister and an ancient nun who tends the fusion cores deep within the ship form an unlikely friendship, which may be key to finding a new home for the Decalogue. It’s also a story about stories—the ones we tell and how they shape the worlds we inhabit.

I’m drawn to space opera—huge galactic vistas and god-level technologies—told with (I hope) literary sensibility and a sense of wonder. I’ve enjoyed developing the universe in these stories, and I hope you enjoy inhabiting it for a time through the characters I’ve created. I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Sisters of the Flare.” Find me at www.stephenrcase.com or reach out on X @StephenRCase.

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Stephen Case is an author, professor, and historian of science. His work has appeared in places like Clarkesworld, Physics Today, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, American Scientist, and Aeon, and he reviews fiction for Strange Horizons. Stephen is coeditor of the Cambridge Companion to John Herschel (Cambridge University Press) and author of Creatures of Reason: John Herschel and the Invention of Science, forthcoming from University of Pittsburgh Press.

After thirty-three rejections, Ken Schneyer makes his Asimov’s debut with the story “Tamaza’s Future and Mine” in our [July/August issue, on sale now!]. In the following Q&A, discover more about Ken’s influences, his background, and why writing for his own enjoyment has been so important for his success

Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
Ken Schneyer: This story arose out of my dissatisfaction with various tropes I have seen (including some I have written) related to a common situation that arises in fiction, particularly adventure, military, and spy stories.  I started making a list of those tropes and realized that I didn’t believe in any of them.  It isn’t that I didn’t believe the characters would do such things, it’s that I didn’t believe they would ultimately react to them in the way they were portrayed to react.

AE: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly? 
KS: I wrote the entire first draft between May 31 and June 2 of 2023 at the Highlights Foundation Retreat Center in Boyds Mills, PA.  That’s very fast for me; in ordinary times it can take me months or years to produce a draft.  But once I decided that I wanted to interrogate these tropes, I realized I wanted my protagonist to actually know of the tropes herself.  So she needed to be a big reader, which led to the notion that she’d be reading aloud to the child who is also central to this story.  That the story is being published less than year after I finished the first draft is astonishing to me.

AE: How did the title for this piece come to you?
KS: My preliminary title was a line appearing near the end of the story, but I decided that it was too on-the-nose and telegraphed too much.  Mentioning “futures” makes the reader speculate about how the futures of the two characters would differ, and why.  

AE: What is your history with Asimov’s?
KS: This story is my first sale to Asimov’s but my 34^th submission to it since 2008.  It makes me proud of my own persistence and patience, and also grateful for the praise and encouragement I received from editor Sheila Williams in many of her kind rejection notes over the years.

AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
KS: In no particular order: Ursula Le Guin, John Varley, Marge Piercy, Greg Egan, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, Kage Baker, Robertson Davies, Alexander Jablokov, Robert Heinlein, Mary Renault, Sarah Pinsker, Amal El-Mohtar, Vandana Singh, David Gerrold, N. K. Jemisin, Alfred Bester, Robert Sheckley, Eugie Foster, Anton Chekhov, Dorothy Sayers, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Crais, Nancy Kress, Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, Adam-Troy Castro, Joan Slonczewski.

AE: How much or little do current events impact your writing?
KS: Since I’m such an introvert, almost all of my ideas come from within, and current events are, if anything, a distraction from what I’m trying to accomplish.  In this particular story, I have to emphasize that current events had absolutely no influence.  Although I knew, back in June of 2023, about the horrible events in the Artzakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), they were not in my mind when I was writing, and of course the October attacks in Israel hadn’t happened yet.  There is ongoing oppression everywhere, but that’s an historical fact of life going back centuries, and it’s “current” only in the sense that things have not changed, or have not changed enough.

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The more you write, the better you get.  So, if the first story has trouble finding a home, write the second one and submit it.  If the second one fails, write the third one.  Write drafts you don’t like and can’t use.  Write fragments that never turn into stories.  Just keep writing.

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AE: How do you deal with writers’ block?
KS: First I promise myself that I’m writing only for my own pleasure, without concern for the finished product or what anyone thinks of it.  If I can do that, typically I can write just to play.  (As I have received more attention, this necessary step has become harder; but without it, I freeze.)  If I’m lacking a topic, I have an ongoing journal of “story ideas” (now over 47,000 words long) that I can refer to for prompts.  Failing that, Larissa Lai taught me a brainstorming exercise that can typically get me started on a stream-of-consciousness narrative which sometimes yields surprising results.

AE: How did you break into writing?
KS: I was fortunate in making my first professional sale in 2008 (to the “Futures” feature of Nature Physics) only three months after my first submission.  (No, I take that back; it wasn’t really my first submission.  When I was fifteen, I submitted two stories (“Red Giant” and “Holy War” 😊) separately to Analog, F&SF, and Galaxy.  They were both rejected at all three magazines, and they were my only pro submissions for over 30 years.)  That 2008 sale, although it garnered almost no attention, was enough positive reinforcement to inspire me to keep writing and submitting through the many rejections that followed.

AE: What inspired you to start writing?
KS: I think I first fancied myself a writer when I was seven.  (I wrote a 500-word story that was a rip-off of The Time Tunnel.)  This ambition, in one form or another, lasted through high school and college (see the aforementioned teenage story submissions), and I even started a novelette on the train during my commute to my first “grown-up” job.  But then I more-or-less forgot about being a writer for a quarter-century, expressing myself creatively through scholarly articles, faculty roasts, and weird exam questions.  I got back into it through writing angst-ridden fan fiction in 2006-2007, which gave me the confidence to attempt an original story in the Fall of 2007.  I attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 2009.  Clarion either convinces you that you don’t want to be a writer, or convinces you that you do.

AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
KS: Rejection is the nature of the beast.  My overall acceptance ratio, which I think is a good one, is one acceptance for every eight submissions.  I try not to wait more than 24 hours between a rejection and sending the story out again.  If you’re going to be devastated (or, worse, feel the need to revise the story) every time you get a rejection, you will be miserable.  If you made the work as good as you could before you submitted it, just keep submitting it.
Be conscious about the narrative voice; there is no such thing as a “transparent” or “neutral” narrator, and the right voice can make everything else in the story better.
The more you write, the better you get.  So, if the first story has trouble finding a home, write the second one and submit it.  If the second one fails, write the third one.  Write drafts you don’t like and can’t use.  Write fragments that never turn into stories.  Just keep writing.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing? (IE: Social media handles, website URL…)
KS: I have a web site at kenschneyer.com, which contains my complete bibliography and clips to various videos and audio files.  I’m on Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky as Ken Schneyer.

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Ken Schneyer is a humanities professor, a lawyer, an IT project manager, an actor, an amateur astronomer and genealogist, and a political junkie who lives in Rhode Island. His stories appear in Uncanny, Lightspeed, Analog, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature Physics, Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, and elsewhere. They’ve been honored with Nebula and Sturgeon nominations, translated into five languages, and found their way into a few Year’s Best anthologies. In 2020 Fairwood Press released his second collection, Anthems Outside Time and Other Strange Voices.

Author Genevieve Valentine discusses her writing process, her interest in the psychology of artists, and the thoughts surrounding performance art that inspired her story “Future Perfect,” now available in our [July/August issue, on sale now!]

Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
Genevieve Valentine: “Future Perfect” comes from my complicated feelings about performance art—the definition of it, who decides what qualifies as art, where “real art” is experienced, and the limitations to art’s power, especially against the power of the state.  Despite the space in the museum dedicated to “Adaptive Memory”—in which artist Cora repeatedly cooks and serves a dinner she claims her grandmother once made—the space around her is claustrophobic; she’s surrounded by physical reminders of art that came before it, and we’re surrounded by the curator’s memories of other art exhibits, and how they did, or didn’t, reach their intended audience.  (Whoever the actual intended audience might be—another complicated feeling.)

AV: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly?
GV: This story arrived fully formed; I know what I was thinking about in terms of a story about performance art, and looking back, I can point to a lot of the individual elements that I had come across at very different times, all of which informed what the story ended up being—research I had done on hideous ’50s foods, experiences with anonymous comment sections—but the story itself happened quickly.

AE: Is this story part of a larger universe, or is it stand-alone?
GV: Technically this is a stand-alone story; however, at some point I must admit that there’s a Genevieve Valentine Five Minutes From Now Cinematic Universe where a lot of my science fiction seems to take place—my novels Persona and Icon as well as several of my short stories, like “The Nearest Thing” and “Small Medicine”—and this story is certainly located there. (This universe used to be a little farther in the future than that, but the future is barreling towards us increasingly fast.)

AE: How did the title for this piece come to you?
GV: Generally with titles, I either agonize for weeks about it, or I know what it is before I even begin. “Future Perfect” is the title of a piece of performance art that plays continuously in the museum—a short video clip from another performance-art piece hosted there years before, in which two sisters (one of whom is now dead) reminisce about something that happened long ago in high school, while one of them brushes the other’s hair. It hangs heavy over the museum; Cora’s “Adaptive Memory” exhibit is sometimes drowned out by it. Future perfect is the verb tense used when describing something that may or may not have begun yet, and will be completed sometime in the future. Grammatically, that’s a fascinating tension between uncertainty and predestination, and it’s why “Future Perfect” was always the title of that art piece, and of this story.

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“Future Perfect” comes from my complicated feelings about performance art— the definition of it, who decides what qualifies as art, where “real art” is experienced, and the limitations to art’s power, especially against the power of the state.

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AE: How much or little do current events impact your writing?
GV: If I could look directly into the camera here, I would. Let’s just say that for those who’ve read “Future Perfect,” I think this question will handily answer itself.

AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
GV: There are very few genre trappings I’m wedded to; I write in several of them. However, if we mean themes in terms of obsessions, I’ve given up trying to avoid my ongoing fascination with performance, artifice, branding, ritual, the perception of art, the psychology of artists, the maintenance of the state, and narrators who know far more information than they’re able to meaningfully act on.  I’m sure so long as I never examine why I’m drawn to all those things, I’ll be fine.

AE: What is your process?
GV: Generally my process is to think about something for a while until it feels ready to commit to paper, write a draft in a fugue state, be consumed with self-loathing for an unspecified and variable length of time, and then return to the draft to begin the actual crafting.

AE: What other careers have you had, and how have they affected your writing?
GV: I’ve had many, and they’ve all affected my writing; not every job has been good, but all the effects on my writing have been.  “Future Perfect” draws in particular on my time in event management, which involves being in a lot of places at liminal hours, during which they take on a very specific quality that isn’t present when they’re open for business. The night watch shift always knows.

AE: What are you reading right now?
GV: Recent and current books include Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds, A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter), Kate Strasdin’s The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe, and Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, written by Rebecca Hall and illustrated by Hugo Martínez.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing?
GV: I’ve largely retreated from social media, though I occasionally emerge to shout into the wastelands of Twitter at @glvalentine and the fog of Bluesky at @glvalentine. The most reliable place to check for new work is actually genevievevalentine.com, which is fairly regularly updated, and doesn’t require you to sign up for anything at all!

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Genevieve Valentine is the author of Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Persona, and Icon; she is the recipient of the Crawford Award, and has been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy. Her comics work includes Catwoman and Ghost in the Shell. Her short work has appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her most recent book is the graphic novel Two Graves, alongside artists Ming Doyle and Annie Wu.

Robert Morrell Jr. discusses how his family history and journeys around South Carolina helped inspire his latest story,”A Family Matter.” Read it in our [July/August issue, on sale now!]

Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
Robert Morrell Jr.: Last year I went to the Isle of Palms near Charleston. Along the way, I stopped to visit various relatives across South Carolina. A cousin had recently moved into the Francis Marion National Forest, her house actually bordering on federally protected swamp land. She showed me where her son had shot a charging feral hog (and told me about the neighbor who grills all such kills in the area). Then she took me on an ATV ride to a pitcher plant field, passing by an abandoned trailer that looked like it had fallen from the sky.

AE: Wow, so you had the setting. What sparked the story?
RMJ: Well, after visiting the old places, and reminiscing with relatives, I felt the urge to lean into family history. I wrote the first paragraph thinking of my father, who always regretted getting out of fighter pilot school just as the Korean War ended. What if? That led to genetic identification of remains, which got me to my own DNA report, with its surprises, and the swamp explanation of state multi-racial statistics. I added a little something extra, and we were off! My cousin, hearing what I was up to, pointed to Hell Hole and its beauty pageant. Then she sent me a link to a local TV story about a hunter that got lost there for a night. The story wrote itself after that. It was all I could do to hang on.

AE: Do you particularly relate to any of the characters in this story?
RMJ: All the characters of this story are people I have known, which may surprise those who believe the country has been homogenized by mass media. In my experience, the deeper you go into rural areas, the more the old stereotypes come alive, for better or worse. You could meet all the characters in “A Family Matter” just by driving north on 41 from Charleston. You would have to go down some dirt roads to find them, though.

AE: What made you think of Asimov’s for this story?
RMJ: I’ve enjoyed Asimov’s for many years, and one thing I believe it does well are stories where new technologies affect us in ways we did not expect. At its core, “A Family Matter” is about genetic testing. Across the world, people are getting DNA ancestry reports and learning about their past in ways the old-style DAR genealogists never could (or would!). But how do we process the surprises without some kind of reference? What does it mean when you find family history you never knew about? How do you think about connections to cultures that were forgotten or hidden? Sometimes, we need Science Fiction to go a step further, giving us perspective on the nearer new thing. 

AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
RMJ: I listen to a lot of podcasts, mostly history and science. Science Fiction related, I really enjoy “Hugos There” (nominated for a Hugo this year), and got to guest host for its December 2023 episode. Another podcast that has given me a whole fresh spin on Science Fiction is “Hugo Girl!”, (which “won” a Hugo last year). It is a fun and forgiving look at Science Fiction through a feminist lens. There are scenes in “A Family Matter” where I imagined the Hugo Girls reading over my shoulder, and I think the story is better for it.  

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You could meet all the characters in “A Family Matter” just by driving north on 41 from Charleston. You would have to go down some dirt roads to find them, though.

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AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
RMJ: Yes. I usually write one remove from “earth-shaking events” and involve characters not normally considered heroes. They are not the hyper-competent astronaut making first contact, or the genius scientist making an important discovery. They are everyday people finding their daily lives being altered in big or little ways by a larger story. Their actions may have significant effects on the world, but their focus is on the personal: family, friends, and home. I think this comes from my hospital career, which was behind the scenes from the doctors and nurses (first in microbiology, then in oncology research computing). I don’t begrudge the hero their story, but think there are things to see away from the spotlight.

AE: What is your process?
RMJ: Having been a chess player and computer programmer, you would think I plan everything out, but I do the opposite. I start without knowing, and sometime intentionally write myself into corners. Then I wake up at four in the morning and the solution is there, fully formed. It’s a magical experience, and I enjoy it so much that it’s a letdown when I finally understand the whole story. After that it is all just typing.

AE: What other projects are you currently working on?
RMJ: I am six chapters into my fourth novel, a space opera. The one I most recently finished, a first contact novel, has the same humor and tone as “A Family Matter”, and is under consideration at Angry Robot. (I view the first two as practice novels and are safely hidden away.) My current habit is to write a chapter, then do a short piece. I used to skydive, and am helping an old BASE jumper (BASE# 37!) edit his autobiography. There is a prequel story to the space opera novel in the works which involves BASE jumping and some stories about my late brother, who was also an early BASE jumper. (I myself only jumped out of airplanes; the way God intended.)

AE: What Science Fiction prediction would you like to see come true?
RMJ: First contact, without a doubt. I am worried it is going to happen right after I die. If so, I will demand a refund.

AE: What are you reading right now?
RMJ: Dangerously Funny by David Bianculli, about the Smothers Brothers: history is just true Science Fiction. Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow: I could not resist the idea of a forensic accountant.

AE: What in the story did you leave out?
RMJ: I am so glad you asked that! It has been bothering me since I finished the story. Most people, when they think of swamps, picture massive ancient trees. Sadly, Hell Hole and the entire Francis Marion National Forest are not like that anymore. In 1989 Hurricane Hugo levelled the Forest. Today all the trees are uniformly thirty-five years old, mostly pines. Tall, but not behemoths. Any house built since then is on stilts. Lyle would have sprained his ankle jumping out that window. How Great Granny’s house survived and never got to code, I left unsaid.

AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing?
RMJ: @Wallet55 on Bluesky, Mastodon and “Twitter” in descending order of frequency. Warning: there are a lot of cat photos. Squeaky, the cat in “A Family Matter” is there, but don’t tell him I changed his gender. He is sensitive about that since we took him to the vet.

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Bob Morrell is a South Carolina native living in the frozen wastes of North Carolina. He is husband to a retired librarian and servant to four formerly feral felines. “A Family Matter” is his first science fiction publication in decades, after a distracting career in medical research computing.