In what has been an interesting year, I have three published works eligible for awards:
A DREAM OF ELECTRIC MOTHERS (a science fiction, alternate history Novelette) which appears in Africa Risen. Everyone can now read this story for free.
- Set in an alternate history where Europe never colonized Africa but instead formed technological and social partnerships, a group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country’s ancestors, seeking advice about potential conflict but one of them has a much more personal agenda.
- Genre indicators: Science fiction, africanfuturism, alternate history
- Word count: 7839 (Novelette category)
- Reviewer highlights: Publisher’s Weekly, Tar Vol on, StarBroek News, Marissa Lingen’s Reviews and more. Its also already on the Nebula recommended reading list so if you’re an SFWA member, you can also vote for it there.
PERFORMANCE REVIEW (a science fiction short story) written as part of a project with the team at Google research using Wordcraft powered by Google’s proprietary LaMDA AI model (yes, the same AI that was in the news earlier this year because one of the engineers thought it had become sentient).
- Set in near-future Lagos, its a story about what could happen if companies start trying to not just optimize their operations, but their people too.
- Genre indicators: Science fiction, africanfuturism, transhumanism
- Word count: 3730 (Short Story category)
If you read and enjoyed these stories then consider nominating them for the relevant awards and categories.
I also have an eligible non-fiction article.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS FROM AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF AFRICAN SFF, which appears on the SFWA blog. In it, I analyze trends in data from 100 years of African SFF publishing.
Its already gotten some awards buzz (thank you!) but if you do nominate it, please nominate as the entire “African Speculative Fiction Database”, as its taken a lot of effort by many people over the years to collect all the data and I didn’t do it (all) alone.
Alright, that’s it.
On a related note, I’m also catching up on reading of my own and will (probably) have my usual list of favorite African SFF up by early next year – ideally January so feel free to point me in the way of your own favorites.
Thanks y’all
Wole Talabi 