Author: Sue Burke

My third novel, Immunity Index, is on sale during the month of April. All ebook versions are only $2.99 at all retailers.

More information and links to booksellers are at TorForge.com: eBook Deals Aplenty: April 2023!

What’s Immunity Index about?

Library Journal: [starred review] “This dystopian biothriller reads like a 21st-century version of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, crossed with George Orwell’s 1984. The clone sisters and their creator each provide alternating perspectives of a chaotic world and evince that individuals can make a difference. The story they tell is hopeful, heartbreaking, and compelling at every turn. Highly recommended for readers of dystopian science fiction or political technothrillers.”

Publishers Weekly: “Burke endows her characters with distinct personalities and conjures a frighteningly real sense of national destabilization as events spiral out of their control.”

What I like the most about C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, is the celebration of creativity among the people who attend. Cosplay strolls down the aisles in all its glory, artists pass around inspiration, gamers revel in their enthusiasm, and writers join in the fun. Pro or amateur, we’re all fans, and we get energy from each other.

If you can’t make it to C2E2, you can still celebrate creativity on April Fool’s Day. Make something: art in any medium, a poem, a story, a meal, or don some fabulous clothing. If you see someone being creative, tell them they’re doing a great job. Nobody ever says or hears that often enough.

If you’re at C2E2, come see me Saturday, April 1, from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. in Room S403-B. I’ll be on the panel Imagining Tomorrow: World Building in Science Fiction. From The Time Machine to The Left Hand of Darkness, science fiction has given us some of the most enduring stories of all time. We’ll discuss our approach to imagining the worlds of tomorrow and some of the science fiction stories that inspired us. Veronica Roth, Sylvain Neuvel, Sue Burke, and J. S. Dewes, moderated by John Jackson Miller.

We know from previous years at C2E2 that aspiring writers come to panels to learn, and we’ll do our best to help you.

After that, I’ll be in the Celebrity Autographing Area from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the panel signing for Imagining Tomorrow: World Building in Science Fiction. You don’t have to buy something or want an autograph to say hi. Let’s talk about creativity. What are you up to?

Water is life. So say plants, at least.…We grow. The sensation is pleasurable, in fact jubilant.… Spring is the most impatient, exciting, exultant season. We celebrate life.… We have rain, we have peace, we have life. We grow.

— From Semiosis, page 282 hardcover

My next novel, Dual Memory, comes out May 16. The publisher has posted Chapter 1 on its blog. It’s short, 1200 words, and ready for you to read here.

Find out how Antonio Moro came to have no job, no friends, no family, no money, no clothes, and an incomplete idea of where he was and what to do next.

Excerpt Reveal: Dual Memory by Sue Burke

My husband jokes that my fiction often has a high body count. It’s true, and I’m sorry about all the people I kill. One particular death made me cry as I wrote it. Right now, I’m drafting Usurpation, the third book in the Semiosis trilogy, and like the others in the series, there’s a lot of violence and death.

Why do I kill so many people and sentient entities in my writing? I’ve wondered about that. A common piece of writing advice is to “write what you know.” In some ways, I think you can’t avoid writing what you know.

I have never known peace. Personally, I’ve lead a quiet, relatively violence-free life. I’ve only had to hide from gunfire once, and I’ve heard a few terrorist bombs, but from a safe distance. But the wider world has always been a bloodbath. (Graph: Our World in Data, deaths in state-based conflicts, World, 1946 to 2020)

Right now, there are ongoing wars, genocides, insurgencies, armed conflicts, random violence like American mass shootings, murderous governments, and civil disorders. In addition, natural and human-caused disasters wreak enormous death and injury.

Some people don’t like to watch the news, and I can’t blame them.

When I watch the news, I more often get angry than sad or depressed. I’m angry because so much of this suffering doesn’t have to happen: it is a choice. We can choose otherwise. There are always alternatives.

Sometimes people choose well. Peace breaks out, fighting subsides, victims get aid and succor, and people learn how to do better. There is hope. In my writing, it might be a rough trip, but I try to find a way toward hope.

In the novel Semiosis, Chapter 3 ends as Higgins says:

“I would go out to share some truffle with Pitman soon, and I would sing him a sad song about fear and hope, failure and healing, about sweet and fresh sap in leaves evergreen with grief. Maybe I could teach the pack to coo along. Music the Pax way. Cross-species communication. They never did that on Earth. Singing fippolions. Dancing fippokats. Helpful, talkative plants with a sophisticated appreciation of abstract ideas. Good times. They can happen. Wait and see.”

Here are the words to that song. Feel free to set them to music.

Grief Evergreen (Higgins’s Song)

People will die, and I knew that yesterday.

People will cry, and I know that now today.

I would have been fine just knowing that yesterday.

I didn’t want to learn I was right today.

(Chorus)

Fresh sap in the leaves evergreen,

clean and new every season,

grief evergreen.

–

The ache of a soul that lived a night too long,

the one that brought sorrow and failure and wrong,

the one I saw coming. I knew all along

I couldn’t stop it. I wish I were that strong.

(Repeat chorus)

Life is a song, and time never stops breathing.

I can’t be quiet, I can’t refuse to sing.

I can’t stop sunrise, and I can’t stop the spring.

It hurts more to keep silent. I have to sing.

(Repeat chorus)

Here’s the cover for my next novel, Dual Memory, available May 16 (but you can pre-order now).

I love the art by Mike Heath—the combination of organic and inorganic minds tells you a lot about the novel. The colors and motif suggest a frigid island with waves whipped by stormy winds. Under the stars, someone and something are thinking together.

The art was delayed because at first my editor at Tor suggested using art from an AI, since there is an aspiring artificial intelligence artist in the book. Then problems with AI art were revealed, and it didn’t seem like such a good idea. So the process started over with a human artist.

A review by Library Journal sums up the novel well, I think:

Antonio Moro, climate change refugee, undercover mercenary, and self-taught artist, teams up with a chatty rogue AI with ADHD and a whole lot of attitude in this cli-fi techno-thriller. After the “Anthropocene Tip,” the economies and social networks of Earth are collapsing. The Arctic island of Thule, bastion of the wealthy and almost militantly neutral Sovereign Practitioners Association of medical oligarchs, is under attack by global pirates. Antonio and the sophisticated band of machine intelligences led by his AI will bend the laws of humans and robotics to save themselves—and save the islanders from their own selfish consequences as well. A story of human greed wrapped in a thriller, fronted by a confused and frequently petrified human who sees all too clearly that the machines are already running the world and that the best thing he can do is to strap in for a wild ride.

VERDICT This rollicking thriller from Burke moves at a fast pace but manages to maintain its focus on the true threats of climate change and human hubris, all the while keeping readers riveted and entertained.

“Rollicking thriller.” I love that, too. Who doesn’t want to rollick?

I’ll be at Capricon, a Chicago science fiction convention that’s been held annually for the past 43 years. This year it will be downtown from February 2 to 5 in the Sheraton Grand Chicago. The theme is “Eternity Awaits…”

“For centuries, writers and artists have speculated on What Comes After; some with smug anticipation, others in abject terror; with abated breath or baited curiosity. Often with a degree of bald humor — gallows, or otherwise. Mythologies and entire religious experiences have been built around these themes, as have stories, novels, poems, plays, movies, and television shows. The Afterlife has become not only a subject for contemplation, but also for entertainment, social commentary, and even adventure. At Capricon 43, we will embrace it all. At Capricon 43, Death is where the story begins.”

What will we do? Capricon describes itself this way:

“We celebrate the best of science fiction and fantasy, with a focus on literature. We are part of the world-wide fannish community, where diversity is encouraged and all are welcome. During the day, members attend programming on a variety of topics: books, movies, television, anime, space exploration, and science. There’s something for everyone including a special children’s track for our young fans and a teen lounge. Visit the dealer’s room, see the art show and attend the auction, get into gaming, karaoke, filk, or party all night long!”

The program of activities and events is here. You can attend for the whole weekend or just one day. Registration information is here.

I’ll be on some panels:

Saturday, February 4, 1:00 p.m. – Flash Fic Meets Scribble Art: A flash-fic/scribble-art challenge: A prompt will be presented and the authors will write a few paragraphs while the artists do quick sketches. Perhaps some will actually go together. Tammy Coxen (moderator), Dex Greenbright, Gene Ha, Tina Jens, Alessandra Kelley, Christine Mitzuk, and Sue Burke.

Saturday, February 4, 2:30 p.m. – I’m a Writer! Now What?: Writing is a solitary act that has few rules of the road. Measuring success and setting expectations as a writer is hard when often we try to compare ourselves to the giants of genre. This session is about how to set your own writing career goals, growing your own audience, and staying on a path of success without having self-defeating expectations. Mary Mascari (moderator), Jonathan Brazee, Sue Burke, Heshe Leontess, and Donna J.W. Munro.

Saturday, February 4, 4:00 p.m. – Writing Short Fiction: What are the beats to a short story? How many plots should you have? Learn why a short story is more than just a smaller novel.    Jonathan Brazee (moderator), Sue Burke, Brendan Detzner, Donna J.W. Munro, and Sophie Partlow.

Sunday, February 5, 1:00 p.m. – Killing Characters for Plot Reasons: No matter how well loved a character is, sometimes they need to die. Shaun Duke (moderator), Jonathan Brazee, Sue Burke, Reina Hardy, and Jeri Sherpherd.

***

By the way, my report about Chicon 8, the World Science Fiction Convention held in Chicago from September 1 to 5, 2022, has been posted at Concatenation.

From January 25 to 27, Barnes & Noble is taking 25% off the price of all pre-orders: dead-tree books, audiobooks, and ebooks.

This includes my next novel, Dual Memory, available May 16. The coupon code for checkout is PREORDER25

Soon, my novel will have cover art. I’ll explain the delay later. Meanwhile, it’s a good time to pre-order all the books you’re waiting for if B&N is your bookseller. You can find a listing of some great upcoming books here.

By the way, Dual Memory is included in The Most Anticipated Chicago Books of 2023 by Chicago Review of Books!

Among the many arguments against eating meat, one seems undeniable: Animals don’t want to be eaten. What about plants?

Sometimes, plants do want you to eat certain parts of them. Most fruits — apples, watermelons, and avocados — depend on animals to take the fruit, eat it, and deposit the seeds in a place where a new plant might be able to grow. That’s how plants expand their territories.

Some plants know we’ll eat their seeds and use a brute-force strategy to cope. Cereal grains like wheat or rice produce so many seeds at once that we animals can’t eat them all. Some nut-bearing trees do the same thing: in “mast years” oaks produce an massive number of acorns, guaranteeing that a few will get the chance to germinate. I can’t imagine, though, that the grains and trees are overjoyed to feed us.

Prairie grass wants animals to eat its leaves. In the United States Great Plains, bison and other grazers tend to munch everything above ground. Grass faces competition from other plants. The stems of their competitors rise above the ground, but grass stems are actually underground, so when bison chew their way across the landscape, they inflict mortal damage on the competition. Grasses can easily replace their lost leaves.

We humans eat a lot of grass seeds — such as corn and rye — but not a lot of grass leaves. When we do eat the leaves of a plant, we tend to chop off the entire plant, such as a head (bud) of cabbage or lettuce, which is mortal damage. Carrots and potatoes are roots, and artichokes and broccoli are flowers, and plants undoubtedly consider those parts valuable. They clearly don’t want to be eaten that way: think of all the plants that grow thorns or poisons to defend against us. They fight back.

We are predators of animals and plants. When possible, plants use our hunger to their advantage, or they find ways to minimize the damage, or they try to fight us off. This, I think, is the difference between meat and vegetables. Cows don’t necessarily realize that we intend to eat them. Tomatoes and cactuses have us figured out.