While I am a sucker for fairytales and magic, one area of writing that I persistently search for is dystopian not-so-distant futuristic novels. Something plausible, and terrifying, that engulfs the reader in the imaginative, but hope-it-won’t-happen world characters live in.
What makes this genre so distinct from the rest of fiction is its possibility. Take The Handmaid’s Tale””Margaret Attwood created a world where everything was derived from something that happened in history. It is unfathomable to consider the world she created could become possible, but isn’t that the draw? Margaret dramatized real-world situations to tell her story. But the scariest part of the book is that much of the events have happened, or could happen in the near future. To believe something could become reality makes the story that much more interesting. It is fortune telling through a character’s lens.
Augland is such a novel. It takes readers through a not-so-distant future if greed and corporate and political power corruption became too powerful. It would take a domino effect of situations: a Civil War, a corporate giant, and a compelling AI and dream-like consumer product, to happen, but the truth is, its plausible.
The novel asks the question, if corporations genuinely wanted to gain complete control, what would it look like? Major conglomerates gain a monopoly on the corporate market, giant corporations become an essential part of our lives, and companies gain enough power to start a war and take over the government.
Augland expands the current corporate and government dynamic and exaggerates the perimeters of a world that would have the working class “employed” in exchange for mere survival within the corporation’s walls.
This dystopian world is not all bad, however. Many want to create a society that benefits the masses. This story shows what greed and power can do in the hands of corporations and AI technology, but it also shows us the damage that can be done when people rebel.
Coming December 6th! Augland, a dystopian science fiction novel that discusses the geopolitical climate of a futuristic corporate takeover. Ashton, an unknowing heroine, rallies against the corporate grain in a theme-park would full of Suits to protect those she cares about””the Suit-less.
Erin Carrougher lives in the Seattle area and was more than suited to write about the region as the location of her dystopian novel. She has a passion for storytelling and loves to envision worlds other than our own. Carrougher minored in Creative Writing and currently works as a Sales Manager, and enjoys cooking and the outdoors. Augland is Carrougher’s first novel.
This was a guest blog post. Interested in blogging here?
Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?
Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines.
Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.
Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.
I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:
Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
A recipe or description of a meal from your upcoming book
Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
Women, PoC, LGBT, or other wise disadvantaged creators in the history of gaming, ranging from very early times up to the present day.
F&SF volunteer efforts you work with
Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.
When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)
Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Guest Post: The Cake is a Truth by Clara Ward
Note from Cat: I’m so pleased to see Be The Sea out in print. I read an early version and it’s a lovely book. Please pick it up or request it through your local library!
A Yule log cake features prominently in my new novel, Be the Sea. While preparing it, four characters share bits of their history involving kitchens and cooking.
Kai, an outgoing enby poly pansexual from Hawai’i says, “Where I grew up, I loved everyone’s kitchen except mine.”
Aljon, a quiet ace sailor turned ship’s cook from the Philippines responds, “I felt safe in our kitchen and extended that to others.”
They’re both vegan, and Matt, who loves to feed people and is simultaneously making his second and third cakes for Yule, is Pagan. So the cake they make together is vegan, filled with pistachio cream spiraled inside chocolate cake. It’s frosted with whipped chocolate, applied in thick swoops with a knife, then textured using the tines of a fork to resemble bark. Powdered sugar is dusted on top as if there’s been a light winter snow; after all, this is a Yule log cake.
In truth, my household makes the same cake fashioned as…a groundhog.
Why? What’s the truth behind my fictional cake?
First, like my story’s point of view character, Wend, I love chocolate but grew up with a single mom who had little interest in or time for cooking, let alone baking. Second, and completely unrelated to my novel, my mom had a peculiar obsession with Groundhog Day (the holiday, not the movie). As she told it, this arose from a chance encounter with a newspaper reporter in San Francisco in the ‘60s who was asking passersby on the street if they knew what day it was. Evidently, the moment in my mom’s life when she felt most seen and affirmed was when she answered correctly that it was February 2nd, Groundhog Day.
I will never know if my mom would have identified as enby or ace (although I have my suspicions) because she passed away in the early ‘90s. What I know is that she made exactly one kind of cake. I don’t make it the same way she did, but once a year, for Groundhog Day, my chosen family chooses from several options for chocolate roll cakes. The tines of a fork pluck at the frosting until it looks like fur. A diagonal slice through the center makes one cake into two, each with a sloped face that can be decorated with nuts for ears and jellybeans for eyes.
In different times and different kitchens, each of us may share our own truths. We will see the same cake in new and different ways. And sometimes, in the eyes of a reporter or a groundhog, we will feel seen.
Choose your own—traditional, vegan, gluten-free, or nut-free—log or critter cake:
1) Cake
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 17×20” jelly roll pan with greased parchment (flour top if not gluten-free).
Baking for a traditional or gluten-free party? Jump to 1a.
Let’s make it vegan! Jump to 1b.
1a) Melt 4 oz melted bittersweet chocolate and allow it to cool a bit. In a mixing bowl, beat ¼ cup sugar and 6 egg yolks together for 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate, scrape down sides, blend until consistent.
In a separate mixing bowl, beat 6 egg whites until bubbly, add ¾ tsp cream of tartar, and beat until soft peaks form. Add 2 Tbsp sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture a quarter at a time. Pour into prepared pan and bake 15 minutes (or until not shiny and center springs back when touched). Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa and cover with damp towel while it cools. Jump to 2.
1b) Blend in a food processor until finely ground: 4 oz flour, 4 oz sugar, 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, and 2 oz blanched hazelnuts. Place in a sealed container in the freezer for at least an hour.
Mix until stiff peaks form: 12 oz water, 8 oz sugar, ¼ oz Versawhip (modified soy protein), and ¼ tsp xanthan gum. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Rewhip and quickly fold in chocolate mixture from freezer. Pour into a prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes (or until center springs back when touched). Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa and cover with damp towel while it cools. Jump to 2.
2) Filling
Pull out yet another mixing bowl.
Stay nut-free with a traditional whipped cream filling! Jump to 2a.
Choose your favorite nuts (pistachio, walnut, cashew…) and stay vegan. Jump to 2b.
2a) Whip until soft peaks form: 1½ cup extra heavy whipping cream, 1½ Tbsp sugar, and ½ tsp vanilla (may use gelatin, agar agar, or Cobasan to stabilize if desired). Jump to 3.
2b) Blend 4 cups nuts, ½ cup maple syrup, seeds from 1 vanilla bean, and ½ cup water in a food processor until fluffy. Chill. (If using hard nuts like pistachios or cashews, it helps to soak them for 4 hours ahead of time with the vanilla bean slit open in the same water.) Jump to 3.
3) Frosting
Craving a classic creamy chocolate? Jump to 3a.
For intense vegan chocolate frosting that requires almost nothing beyond chocolate and finesse: Jump to 3b.
3a) Run 12 oz of your favorite bittersweet chocolate in a food processor until very fine. Keep that running as you pour 1½ cups of nearly boiling heavy whipping cream in a steady stream. (Adding ¼ cup more cream will make it fudgier. Adding ¼ cup of room temperature butter at the end will make it fluffier.) Cool completely once smooth. Jump to 4.
3b) Whip 9 oz of very hot water into 12 oz of melted bittersweet chocolate. Place in ice bath and whip until spreadable. (May be best to prepare this option after you roll the cake and spread immediately.) Jump to 4.
4) Bakers Assemble!
Spread the filling evenly onto the cake. Use the parchment to lift one long edge and roll, pulling back the parchment as you go. Refrigerate for one hour before slicing center diagonally (if desired for face or other decoration).
Spread with frosting, texture with a fork, and add candy or nut features to create the final—jump off the page to your own creativity!
Author bio:
Clara Ward lives in Silicon Valley on the border between reality and speculative fiction. Their latest novel, Be the Sea, features a near-future ocean voyage, chosen family, and sea creature perspectives, while delving into our oceans, our selves, and how all futures intertwine. Their short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Decoded Pride, Small Wonders, and as a postcard from Thinking Ink Press. When not using words to teach or tell stories, Clara uses wood, fiber, and glass to make practical or completely impractical objects. More of their words along with crafted creations can be found at https://clarawardauthor.wordpress.com and their short stories can be found at https://clarawardauthor.wordpress.com/short-stories/
Guest Post: Magical Crones and Adventuring Mothers by Catherine Lundoff
When I first began working on a story about women who turned into werewolves as they entered menopause way back in 2009 or so, there was not a whole lot of representation of middle-aged and older women to be found in science fiction, fantasy, or horror. I mean, there were the evil middle-aged queens with talking mirrors, out to poison their younger, prettier rivals and the ancient witches who popped up to do terrible things or sometimes, provide directions, as the case may be. But, with rare exceptions, they were never protagonists, and they were seldom more than cardboard embodiments of evil or just plain window dressing.
Around 2010, that started to change. A bunch of other things happened around then too, including a huge growth in ebook publishing by indie authors and indie publishers which brought in a lot of voices that were not previously being heard from in more mainstream science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Along with that came writers willing to take risks, to tell new stories, to tackle things like representation that had been pretty sparse up until then. Those writers included women who were middle-aged and beyond looking to see themselves and their stories in the pages of the genres they loved.
Amongst those writers was yours truly. As I entered middle age myself, I wanted to see more protagonists that were dealing with the same issues around aging that I was dealing with and still having adventures along the way. Entering middle age often brings with it some big physical and psychological changes, as well as the potential for having one’s traditional social roles (perceived desirability and childbearing, for example) reduced. Menopause is either ignored or treated like a medical condition, and middle-aged women who are still interested in sex are often treated as a punchline to a joke. Quite a bit of this is culturally specific to Western culture as we practice it in the U.S., but that also makes it pretty pervasive.
Inspired by a write-up that I found on a medical site for “symptoms” of menopause (“Unexpected hair growth! Mood swings! Receding gums which make your teeth look longer!”) I embarked on what was originally a novella about a woman who discovers that when she turns fifty, she also turns into a werewolf. She also develops a crush on her next-door neighbor and finds a whole new community of local werewolves, all middle-aged and elderly women, and confronts the people out to destroy her newfound family. After getting a lot of positive feedback for the idea, the novella was followed by the first novel, Silver Moon, and now, the second one, Blood Moon. Some of the themes and issues that I tackle in the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series include coming out at midlife, the physical and psychological experiences of menopause, a magical system that values older women and ways to combat the isolation that can impact women as they age. Also: werewolves, because they’re cool.
Silver Moon originally came out in 2012 (it was reissued by Queen of Swords Press in 2017), joining a small list of novels and stories with female protagonists forty and older in sf and f. These included Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2003), a fantasy that sends a middle-aged noblewoman on a quest, and Remnant Population (2003) by Elizabeth Moon, which is a first contact novel featuring an eighty-year-old human colonist as the protagonist. There were also Nancy Springer’s middle-aged ladies of the fantastic featured in such titles as Fair Peril (1996), Larque on the Wing (1994), and Plumage (2000). YÅ«ya SatÅ’s Dendera (2009) is about a group of elderly Japanese women banding together to fight a supernatural bear, and most popular of all, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld witches, which were first featured in Equal Rites (1987) and Wyrd Sisters (1988).
Armed with the knowledge that there might be more stories out there, I went looking. I started a bibliography of the stories I found featuring science fiction, fantasy, and horror tales with female protagonists over 40 where I listed everything I knew about (10 books and/or stories) and then I asked for suggestions. And it turned out that I wasn’t the only one looking for more older women in speculative fiction. Suggestions trickled in and I checked them out and added them if they seemed like a good fit. The two biggest reasons for not adding a title were unspecified age (character felt “older”) and a misinterpretation of what a “protagonist” was. Middle-aged and older women apparently occupy an outsized role on the fictional page, such that even a walk-on and a couple of lines is as good as being a major player for some readers.
After the initial growth spurt, there were new and rediscovered works popping up every time I asked for suggestions. A nice fan I met at Helsinki Worldcon offered to create a Goodreads list, and things took off from there. The list has taken on a life of its own as people add books and readers discover it.
But apart from the obvious interest in the topic, there still remains the question of how broad and deep the representation these books and stories provide. There are, for example, still not many characters who are women of color and even fewer who are written by writers of color. There are some queer women, but not many. A list of trans women who are also elders in spec fic and protagonists, while longer than it would have been a couple of years ago, is still very short. Representation of aged characters is also full of magical and technological “cures” and other miracles.
There have also been some challenges making readers aware that the books and stories that do exist are out there. I, and now we, have been adding to and publicizing these lists for years and yet every six months or so, I encounter a post or commentary somewhere online to the effect that there are almost no older women featured as protagonists in sf and f. This is invariably followed by people suggesting the same five or six books, many of whom are amazed that there are many more stories than they thought out there.
As writers in the field age, their characters often age with them (sometimes subconsciously), so I think that we will see more of these stories in the future. Add to that the works that we have not yet discovered and included, particularly those from outside the U.S., perhaps not originally written in English, and there is fertile ground for exploring older women as central characters in speculative fiction.
Bio: Catherine Lundoff is the publisher at Queen of Swords Press, a Minneapolis-based small press focused on fiction from out of this world. Queen of Swords publishes work by A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Catherine’s own work and that of other authors. Catherine is also an award-winning writer and editor who works in IT and lives with her wife and their kitty overlords. Her books include the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series, Silver Moon and Blood Moon, Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic and as editor, Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space). She is the author of over 100 published short stories and essays which have appeared in such venues as Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, the SFWA Blog, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, American Monsters Part 2 and World of Darkness anthologies Haunting Shadows, The Cainite Conspiracies and Ghosthunters. She teaches writing classes at the Rambo Academy and Springboard for the Arts.
While I am a sucker for fairytales and magic, one area of writing that I persistently search for is dystopian not-so-distant futuristic novels. Something plausible, and terrifying, that engulfs the reader in the imaginative, but hope-it-won’t-happen world characters live in.
Erin Carrougher lives in the Seattle area and was more than suited to write about the region as the location of her dystopian novel. She has a passion for storytelling and loves to envision worlds other than our own. Carrougher minored in Creative Writing and currently works as a Sales Manager, and enjoys cooking and the outdoors. Augland is Carrougher’s first novel.
Note from Cat: I’m so pleased to see Be The Sea out in print. I read an early version and it’s a lovely book. Please pick it up or request it through your local library!
Clara Ward lives in Silicon Valley on the border between reality and speculative fiction. Their latest novel, 
