Shana Chandra

The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade (Stelliform Press, 2021), 77 pp, $14.99

Octavia Cade’s The Impossible Resurrection of Grief is a non-traditional ghost story, one that truly haunts as it is set in a future not so distant from ours, where the destruction of our seas and wildlife has left familiar land- and seascapes drained of life. Cade has won three Sir Julius Vogel awards for speculative fiction, and it’s worth noting that, besides her recent win for The Stone Wētā (2020), the other two were for novellas, both packing important questions into the small creative space. It’s also worth noting their titles—The Ghost of Matter (2016) and The Convergence of Fairy Tales (2017)—which hint at the themes she explores. [Read more…]

Emma Gattey

Scorchers: A climate fiction anthology, edited by Paul Mountfort and Rosslyn Prosser (Eunoia Publishing, 2020), 280pp., $29

At the time of writing, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released its report on the physical science basis of climate change, including the role of human influence and the state of knowledge about possible climate futures. The findings are terrifying, sobering, devastating. They are also entirely unsurprising. Beyond the realms of climate research and science communication (although often with considerable overlap), fiction writers are among those who have long been grappling with eco-anxiety, futility and the overwhelming question of how on earth to compel people to care, and to act. [Read more…]

Tim Jones

Monsters in the Garden: An anthology of Aotearoa New Zealand science fiction and fantasy, edited by Elizabeth Knox and David Larsen (Victoria University Press, 2020), 607pp, $35

Editing anthologies is hard work. Editing speculative anthologies—those covering some combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror and related genres—is even harder work. Having co-edited two anthologies of speculative poetry, I’ve bumped up against the type of decisions that have to be taken both before the project starts and as it develops. What genres, what types of work, do and don’t qualify for inclusion? Do we take a narrow definition of the field or a wide one? Do we include only published work, only original work, or a mixture? [Read more…]