SL Huang

Speculative fiction author. Mathematician. Gunslinger.

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2022 Awards Eligibility Post

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Hilariously, my last news post was my 2021 eligibility post. It’s not that nothing has been happening — I’ve apparently just gotten very bad at updating here. Huh, I suppose I should do a post soon about preorders for The Water Outlaws now being available…

But that post is not this one!

In 2022, I had three publications available for awards consideration.

BEST RELATED WORK / NONFICTION

The Ghost of Workshops Past: How Communism, Conservatism, and the Cold War Still Mold Our Paths Into SFF Writing (Tor.com, 7,000 words, August 2022)

A deep dive into the history of SFF workshops and their pedagogy that sparked a lot of discussion in genre.

I wrote about 60,000 words while putting this piece together (even if only 7k ended up in the final product), and interviewed over 80 people. I also posted a little more about the process and extra community and historical information on Twitter here.

This article has now been BSFA longlisted!

NOVELETTE

“Murder By Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness” (7850 words, Clarkesworld)

Link to read
Link for audio

This is a short near-future SF novelette. It won top story of the month from Compelling SF, with the commentary “It’s rare that I see near-future AI stories that really feel true-to-life and are also page-turners, Huang knocked this one out of the park.” Reviewer Vanessa Fogg recommends it with “A truly thought-provoking piece on automated chatbots, healers, and trolls. And our own culpability in the birth of technology’s demons.”

Content notes (ROT13): Unenffzrag/fgnyxvat, fhvpvqr (aba-tencuvp, abg ol n cebgntbavfg be CBI punenpgre)

SHORT STORY

“The Ship Cat of the Suzaku Maru” (4700 words, Outland Entertainment)

This story appears in Outland Entertainment’s Bridge to Elsewhere anthology. It’s about a cat on a ship. A most excellent cat. Who has an adventure…

Half a Year of Updates

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It turns out that when I’m on Facebook and Twitter and have a newsletter, I become terrible at updating a blog. Oops. To stay more current, follow me those places!

I last posted here that the Cas Russell books are coming to Tor — YEEHAW! This year has been a whirlwind of preparation for the big re-release, including a series of stellar edits with my editor at Tor, Diana Gill.

I’ve also had two more short stories published in the meantime, which I neglected to post about at the time:

  • “Split Shadow” in the anthology Haunted Futures. Publishers Weekly said of my story: “the outstanding ‘Split Shadow’ by S.L. Huang, an essential portrayal of mental health attitudes and treatment.”
  • “Time Travel Is Only For the Poor” in Analog Science Fiction & Fact. This one’s a tale of when society starts trying to use technology to “fix” what it sees as social ills…
  • And “The Last Robot” also got an audio recording! Check it out here!

Finally, my writer friend Maddox Hahn and I started a charity Patreon we’re calling The Ink Harpies — once we hit $200, we’ll start releasing new short stories through it! I’m planning to post a bit more behind the scenes stuff about my publishing journey on the news feed as well.

So that’s what’s been happening — what’s coming up?

Zero Sum Game, of course, with the big re-release in October. But there’s more! I’ll have at least three short stories and novelettes dropping this year, including “The Woman Who Destroyed Us” in MIT Press’s Twelve Tomorrows anthology, alongside with stories by Elizabeth Bear, Liu Cixin, Ken Liu, Nnedi Okorafor, and more. And I’ll have novella in the “Hunting Monsters” universe coming out from The Book Smugglers!

Lastly, something really exciting — you can meet me in meatspace this year! I’ll be heading back to the United States, and you’ll be able to find me at the following events:

  • Wiscon (May 2018, Madison WI)
  • BookCon (June 2018, NYC), where I’ll be on this panel with Charlie Jane Anders, V.E. Schwab, and Seth Dickinson
  • This Twelve Tomorrows promotional event, with Ken Liu and Elizabeth Bear (June 2018, Boston)
  • Worldcon (August 2018, San Jose)
  • New York City Comic Con (October 2018, NYC)

(That list might change a bit as the year goes on — subscribe to my newsletter for up-to-date announcements.)

If you’re going to be at any of those, come say hi!

That’s the plan ramping up to my Zero Sum Game release. And after THAT…

After that, we shall see. 😀

(If you really, really want me to do an event near your town? Email me or tweet me and tell me so. No guarantees, but I can try!)