News
Refractions Guest Posts
I’ve had the opportunity to feature guest posts about Refractions on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea blog and Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Bit. Both offer insights on the author’s perspective of the novel, the inspiration behind it, and some of the challenges as well as the points I particularly enjoyed while writing it.
Reviews and Interviews
Some great reviews of Refractions from There’s Always Room for One More…, Runalong the Shelves, Bullet Points, and SF Book Reviews. The first two of the venues also had lovely interviews which can be found here and here.
Launch event at SRFC on November 14
REFRACTIONS will have the launch event at the amazing London’s Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, a welcome place for readers and writers of all things spec-fic. The monthly meetings take place in a central London pub (126 York Wy, London N1 0AX). If you are around, do join us for a reading and a discussion on November 14th at 7 pm — the books will be available for sale, and you can get your signed!
Birmingham Fantasy Con
Mel will be attending the British Fantasy convention in Birmingham in September. Come say “hi!” if you’re there!
REFRACTIONS on NetGalley
Book reviewers can now access the eARCs (Advanced Reader Copy) on NetGalley. Fingers crossed for some good reviews!
REFRACTIONS has a cover!
We are now finalising the cover design for reveal on the 28th of August. Here’s a sneak preview!
New spec fic podcast
Mel has recently been a guest on the Shining Moon, a new speculative fiction podcast hosted by Deborah Davitt. In episode three we have talked about hard science fiction — what it is and why we like writing and reading it. The other two guests were William Ledbetter and A. T. Sayre. Mel will also be a guest on the forthcoming episode about space opera, where she will read a few pages from Refractions.
REFRACTIONS coming out in November 2023
I have signed a deal with Storm Publishing for two space opera novels. The first one, REFRACTIONS, will come out in November 2023. The second, loosely connected novel will follow in spring of 2024.
SIX WAKES meets INTERSTELLAR: a dying Earth’s first and only colony planet — and humanity’s last hope for survival — goes mysteriously silent, spurring a hastily cobbled together rescue mission beset with sabotage, murder, and betrayal…
Awards legibility and Strange Horizons review
I’m delighted to see that Nerds of a Feather, an influential fanzine, put Patterns in Stone and Stars on their Hugo Awards Recommended Reading list. And that just day after the novelette was included in Maria Haskin’s quarterly round up of Science Fiction Treasures in Strange Horizons.
New flash in Nature Futures
My new flash fiction piece, The Schwarzschild defence, is up at Nature Futures – with this amazing illustration by Jacey.
Novelette in GigaNotoSaurus
My novelette Patterns in Stone and Stars comes out from GigaNotoSaurus on the 1st of December. This is a story very dear to my heart, one that took a long time to get right. A tale about an immigrant exobiologist, galactic politics, lost love and… electric potatoes.
The Falling on the list of Outstanding Hard Science fiction
The Falling (Clarkesworld, July 2021) makes Rocket Stack Rank list of Outstanding Hard Science Fiction of 2021.