Search Worlds Without End

BSFA longlist nominee for Best Nonfiction

Table of Contents:

Part One: Nairobi

• "A little bit of Nairobi does you good"
• Abstract Omega
• About Kwani?
• Alexander Ikawah
• Clifton Cachagua
• Dilman Dila
• Kiprop Kimutai
• Mehul Gohil
• Richard Oduor Oduku and Moses Kilolo
• Ray Mwihaki
• People I did not meet
• Endnote

Part Two: Writers in the U.K.

• Ayodele Arigbabu
• Lagos 2060: The Writers
• Chikodili Emelumadu
• Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso
• Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
• Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor
• Leye Adenle
• Masimba Musodza
• Nick Wood
• Nikhil Singh
• Tade Thompson
• Tendai Huchu
• Endnote
• Writers in the UK not interviewed

Read this work for free on Tor.com: Part 1, Part 2

A Bakerloo tube train with no-one standing and no empty seats can carry 252 passengers. The driver makes 253. Each one has a page devoted to them, divided into three sections - what they look like, what they are thinking and inside information - and some of them are going to die.

When the UN decides to test the radical new technology Air, Mae is boiling laundry and chatting with elderly Mrs Tung. The massive surge of Air energy swamps them, and when the test is finished, Mrs Tung is dead, and Mae has absorbed her 90 years of memories. Rocked by the unexpected deaths and disorientation, the UN delays fully implementing Air, but Mae sees at once that her way of life is ending. Half-mad, struggling with information overload, the resentment of much of the village, and a complex family situation, she works fiercely to learn what she needs to ride the tiger of change.

This story has been anthologized in Paradise Tales (2011), Year's Best SF 9 (2004), The Year's Best Science Fiction: The Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), and in The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1 (2005).

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 2009, and was reprinted in Apex Magazine, June 2012. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Four (2010), edited by Jonathan Strahan, Year's Best SF 15 (2010), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (2010), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

Read the full story for free at Apex.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany (2015), edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016), edited by Gardner Dozois
• The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016, edited by Rich Horton
• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten (2016), edited by Jonathan Strahan
• The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 1, (2016), edited by Neil Clarke.

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 2008. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection (2009), edited by Gardner Dozios. The story is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

This short story originally appeared in Interzone, #88 October 1994. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelth Annual Collection (1995), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Interzone, #140, February 1999. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Year's Best SF 5 (2000), edited by David G. Hartwell. It is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

Nebula Award nominated novella.

A woman's lifelong appreciation of the work of a popular singing star leads her to buy a computerized simulation of his personality to keep her company.

The story originally appeared in Interzone, #81 March 1994. It can also be found in the anthology Northern Suns (1999) edited by David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant and is included in the collection Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (1994).

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2001 and was later reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine, #93 June 2014. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Gardner Dozois, The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 (2007), edited by Debbie Notkin, Jeffrey D. Smith, Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy, and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

An extraordinary science-fiction novel about identity, divinity and alternate reality -- the story of the son of God.

"Women, of course, can not be sons of God,"

In the village of Nazareth, virgin Maryam and the wife of Yosef barLevi gives birth to a miracle: a little girl. She is named Avigayil, after her grandmother.

But as Avigayil grows, it's clear she believes that she is destined to be someone greater than just the daughter of Maryam. From leading a gang of village boys to challenging the priests in the temple, Avigayil is determined to find her way as Yeshu, a man.

Yeshu can work miracles. He can see futures. He can speak for God.

A gripping, thoughtful sci-fi novel, tackling family, the multiverse and the survival of love through immense change and crisis.

This short story originally appeared in Interzone, #93 March 1995. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

What if you could have sex with anyone in the world? The ultimate fantasy? Or a nightmare of self-discovery?

Michael Blasco, a young scientist investigating what happens to the brain during the process of learning, suddenly finds himself on the other end of experimentation. On the way home from his lab one night he runs into Tony, a fitness instructor from his gym who he harbors a crush for, on the same platform waiting for the subway. When Michael imagines Tony naked, a pleasant fantasy to spice up a dull journey home, an extraordinary thing happens: Tony strips then and there on the platform and offers himself to Michael in front of all onlookers. Horrified, Michael flees. But back at his apartment, Tony reappears, as if by magic. And disappears again, when Michael wishes him away. Being a scientist, Michael recognizes an experiment when he sees one, and sets out to test the parameters of his newfound gift. In quick succession he conjures up Billie Holliday, Johnny Weismuller, Daffy Duck, Picasso, Sophia Loren, even his younger self.

The world is seemingly there for the taking. But what does Michael really desire? Mad with lust and losing all scientific objectivity, he runs the gamut of his fantasies inventing new lovers and calling up old ones, until, sated and morally bankrupt, he's forced to confront himself. What happens to the heart when it gets everything it desires?

From the renowned author of Was and 253 comes a witty, disturbing and intensely erotic fable for the modern age.

Geoff Ryman writes about the other and leaves us dissected in the process. His stories are set in recognizable places--London, Cambodia, tomorrow--and feature men and women caught in recognizable situations (or technologies) and not sure which way to turn. They, we, should obviously choose what's right. But what if that's difficult? What will we do? What we should, or...?

Paradise Tales builds on the success of his most recent novel, The King's Last Song, and on the three Cambodian stories included here, "The Last Ten Years of the Hero Kai," "Blocked," and the exceedingly-popular "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter." Paradise Tales includes stories selected from the many periods of Ryman's career including "Birth Days," "Omnisexual," "The Film-makers of Mars," and a new story, "K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo's Career)."

Table of Contents:

• The Film-makers of Mars - (2008) - shortstory
• The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai - (2005) - novelette
• Birth Days - (2003) - shortstory
• VAO - (2002) - novella
• The Future of Science Fiction - (1992) - shortstory
• Omnisexual - (1990) - shortstory
• Home - (1995) - shortstory
• Warmth - (1995) - novelette
• Everywhere - (1999) - shortstory
• No Bad Thing - (2008) - shortstory
• Talk Is Cheap - (2008) - shortstory
• Days of Wonder - (2008) - novelette
• You - (2009) - novelette
• K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo's Career) - (2011) - shortstory
• Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter - (2006) - novelette
• Blocked - (2009) - shortstory

WFA, Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 2006. The story is also included in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume One (2007), edited by Jonathan Strahan
• Year's Best Fantasy 7 (2007), edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell
• Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition, edited by Rich Horton
• The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18 (2007), edited by Stephen Jones
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection (2007), edited by Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant and Ellen Datlow
• Nebula Awards Showcase 2009, edited by Ellen Datlow.

The story is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2013. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight (2014), edited by Jonathan Strahan.
• The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edited by Rich Horton
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2015), edited by Helen Marshall and Sandra Kasturi

In the city of the future, humans photosynthesize, viruses educate people, organics have replaced electronics... and almost no one lives past forty. In the city of the future, Milena is resistant to the viruses. She is barred from the Consensus. She has Bad Grammar. In the city of the future, Milena feels alone. In the city of the future, Milena meets Rolfa, the huge and hirsute Genetically Engineered Polar Woman. And might, just might, find a place for herself after all...

The discovery of forty reels of a lost 1911 movie adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, impossibly well-made and yet ineluctably old, is...weird. But for the journalist protagonist of "The Film-makers of Mars," that's only the beginning of the weirdness to come...

Geoff Ryman's longer works include The Unconquered Country, the novella version of which won the World Fantasy Award in 1985; The Child Garden, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1990; the hypertext novel 253, the "print remix" of which won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999; and Air, which won the Arthur C. Clarke and James Tiptree, Jr. Awards in 2006.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

This novella was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2023.

When the Neighbors invade and Sharks attacking from the skies kill her family, Third Child must find her own way through a rapidly changing world.

Slightly expanded from the novella of the same title. A rough word count of each shows less than 500 words difference. Technically, this is the same as the novella, as there is too little difference to be considered a new work. However, it did win awards as a novel.

BSFA and WFA winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Interzone, #7 Spring 1984. The story can also be found in the collection Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (1994).

The novella was later published as the novel The Unconquered Country (1986). The revisions are reported to be very minor.

The story of a quest for revenge which becomes a quest for the infinite. Cara was five years old when her mother was killed. She was killed for going down into the wells of vision, where only men were allowed. Cara in turn seeks justice by transforming herself into a male warrior.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2016. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection (2017), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

A collection of astonishing and inventive works by a groundbreaking author of speculative fiction.

Contents:

• A Fall of Angels, or On the Possibility of Life under Extreme Conditions (1994)
• Fan (1994)
• O Happy Day! (1985)
• The Unconquered Country (1984)

Gus has his squeeze Mandy. Mandy used to be a lap dancer. She's still got a body, I can tell you. She's also got a mouth and the brains to use it. Her cover is that she used to be in property development. Well yeah maybe. A certain kind of old babe has the hardest eyes you'll ever see. Mandy says, "The trouble with that scum is they'll turn the heat up on all of us." The Happy Farm keeps its elderly guests protected with the latest security. VAO they call it, Victim Activated Ordnance. Sound guns or microwaves blast thieves and juveniles alike. The Happy Farm provides drugs and physiotherapy and advanced Neurobics to help heal its guests' bodies and minds. It also costs over $100,000 a year. So, some of the guests have turned to unorthodox ways of paying their bills. They hack it out of other people's bank accounts. Then a gang of aged street people starts taking more direct action. They turn the VAO onto the people it's supposed to protect: the young, the wealthy. Age Rage they call it. They even have a charismatic leader called Silhouette. The cosy criminals of the Happy Farm realise that Silhouette is drawing all together too much attention to the scourge of elderly crime. And the best way to do something about that is to catch Silhouette themselves.

This novella can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Cities (2003), edited by Peter Crowther. It is included in the collection Paradise Tales (2011).

WAS is the story of Dorothy. Orphaned as a child in the 1870s, she goes to live in Kansas with her Aunty Em and Uncle Henry. They face drought and poverty. They face each other. Alone, abused, Dorothy meets an itinerant actor called Frank and inspires a masterpiece. From the settling of the West and the heyday of the Hollwywood studios to the glittering megalopolis of modern Los Angeles, WAS is the story of all our childhoods.

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeard in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2011. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection (2012), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Nebula Awards Showcase 2013, edited by Catherine Asaro.