I mentioned a while back that Tor is sending a bunch of their authors down to Goddard to meet with NASA folks and collaborate with them on science-based SF. I caught up with Tor/Forge publicity director Patty Garcia the other night and we chatted about this a bit, and I asked her, with my usual disarming charm, “So, how many of the authors you’re sending down there are not older white men?”
She laughed and said they actually hadn’t chosen the authors yet, and did I have any suggestions?
Off the bat I named Vandana Singh, and once I got home, I also thought of nominating Joan Slonczewski, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Chris Moriarty. But the truth is, I don’t read a lot of hard SF (mostly because I don’t have much time to read anything at the moment), and I’m sure there are plenty of really qualified people whose names would never float to the top of my brain. So I thought I would open the question to all of you. Who is currently writing good hard SF, could really benefit from a collaboration with someone at NASA, and isn’t one of the “usual suspects”?
I did get Patty’s permission to post this question; of course she can’t guarantee that any given suggested person will be invited along, but it certainly can’t hurt to put a list of names in front of her.
You’ve got a bunch of great suggestions in your post already. But of other “unusual suspects” who are writing great SF, I’d also suggest Kay Kenyon, Cory Doctorow, Kat Falls, Seanan McGuire, and Philip Reeve.
And though it might be a bit of a stretch, I’d also be really interested to see what authors traditionally less associated with SF might do with NASA-inspired stories. I’m thinking along the lines of Marie Brennan, Ekaterina Sedia, Cherie Priest, China Mieville, Jeffrey Ford, etc. Whether any would be interested, I have no idea. But I suspect their stories bring a very different perspective to hard SF, and would probably be quite fun.
Greg Egan!
Hannu Rajaniemi!
Alaistar reynolds is a very good hard sci-fi writer, but he already works / has worked at the ESA afaik?
From Alastair Reynolds website:
“I left the UK in 1991 and spent the next sixteen years working in the Netherlands, mostly for the European Space Agency, although I also did a stint as a postdoctoral worker in Utrecht. “
Tobias Buckell
I’ll second the vote for Tobias S. Buckell.
N. K. Jemisin
Nalo Hopkinson
Jainne Fenn
Kay
…which Kay?
Vandana Singh (a brilliant suggestion), Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Samuel R. Delany. Interestingly, I would also be willing to nominate any of these three for most political offices.
No rocket science here in the literal sense. Astrophysicists “practice” in a inherently pseudo scientific “field.” They cannot calculate, but postulate. The marriage of science fiction writers with astrophysicists is negligible: both traffic in the make believe, fiction meets fiction. What an entirely droll idea.
Maureen McHugh and Ted Chiang, please.
Dani Kollin
He’s an old white dude, but I wonder what Neal Stephenson would come up with if he did something more with astrophysics.
Saladin Ahmed, at the top of my list. Misha Nogha, Ernest Hogan, and Emily Devenport, only below Saladin because of the alphabet.
Tangentially, a related program that I’d never heard of until my author Greg Fishbone went this summer is the Launchpad Workshop (http://www.launchpadworkshop.org/), which writers such as Cecil Castellucci, Jay Lake, and Mary Robinette Kowal have attended. It’s funded by the NSF and takes applications for attendees, which can be “any writers, editors, or other creative people who can benefit from the experience and put more and better quality astronomy in front of audiences.”
I second Maureen McHugh. M.t. Andersen (“Feed”).
Just sayin’: send me! I’m a well pub’d science writer/author who’s delving into hard science fiction. I’d love to learn more craft from fiction writers and science from NASA. + I’m a space geek. :)
Nisi Shawl, Hal Duncan, Steven Barnes, Ellen Klages, Nicola Griffith, Owl Goingback. Dunno how many of them are Tor authors, though. I’m not, but I would be interested in going. Might also be a good idea to send a passel of grads of the Clarions, Viable Paradise, etc of, say, the past five years. Those folks are some of the up-and-coming writers in the field.
Laura Mixon
Linda Nagata