Sue Burke’s most recent science fiction novel is Usurpation, the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Semiosis and Interference. She began writing professionally as a teenager, working for newspapers and magazines as a reporter and editor, and began writing fiction in 1995. She has published more than 40 short stories, along with essays, poetry, and translations from Spanish into English of short stories, novels, poetry, and historical works. Find out more at https://sueburke.site/
Can an AI write a good short story? No. But some people are submitting AI-produced stories for publication anyway, hoping for a quick buck. For science fiction magazines, this is costing them time, money, and morale.
I wrote about the problem and the lack of easy solutions for an article in the current issue of Chicago Review of Books, AI Is Fueling a Science Fiction Scam That Hurts Publishers, Writers, and Even Some of the Scammers.
Today the novel Usurpation goes on sale! You can buy it wherever fine books are sold, available as hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. Find out why carnivory isn’t the worst thing a plant can do.
It’s the third book in the Semiosis trilogy, and here’s an incisive review of the series at Ancillary Review of Books by Alex Kingsley called “Imagining Radical Mutualism.”
If you’re in Chicago, please come to the book launch tomorrow, Wednesday, October 29, at 6:30 p.m. at Volumes Bookcafé, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave. Since it’s the day before Halloween, feel free to wear a costume! (Don’t worry, you won’t be the only one.) If you’re not in Chicago and you want an autographed copy, you can order it through Volumes.
The novel Usurpation is the third in the Semiosis trilogy. The first book, Semiosis, takes place on a distant planet called Pax where the dominant species is an intelligent plant, rainbow bamboo. Stevland is the reigning bamboo. At the end of the second book, Interference, Stevland has sent his seeds to Earth, where the rainbow bamboo are flourishing, but no one knows they’re intelligent.
Then, at the end of Interference, Stevland sends a message to the bamboo on Earth: “…I must share a secret about humans. They are ours to protect and dominate.”
A bamboo named Levanter asks, “Tell us how.”
Stevland’s response finally arrives in Usurpation: “…Compassion will give you courage. Love will be ferocious.”
That’s all I can say without spoilers. In fact, I’ve probably spoiled enough already.
Usurpation will be released on October 29. I’ll be celebrating at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 30, at Volumes Bookcafé, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Chicago, with Alex Kingsley, whose first novel, Empress of Dust, has just been released. You’re invited!It’s the day before Halloween, so you’re encouraged to cosplay.
You can see me at a Speculative Literature Foundation event read the opening of Chapter 3 of Usurpation in this 3-minute video. (All the novels in the trilogy are available as audiobooks, narrated by Caitlin Davies and Daniel Thomas May, who do a much better job than me.)
You can read a few reviews of Usurpation at NetGalley, and a recent review of Semiosis at Space Cat Press. Semiosis was named one of the 75 best science fiction books of all time by Esquire Magazine.
If you want an autographed copy of my next novel and you can’t come to the launch party, you can order it through Volumes Books here.
Alex Kingsley’s novel Empress of Dust has just been released, and my novel Usurpation will be released on October 29. We’re both celebrating on Wednesday, October 30, at Volumes Bookcafé in Chicago. You’re invited! It’s the day before Halloween, so feel free to cosplay.
Alex and I belonged to the same writer’s group, although at different times. Alex is a writer, comedian, game designer, and playwright with impressive achievements. Empress of Dust is their first novel, a post-apocalyptic science fiction story featuring trans and LGBT+ characters for new adult and adult readers.
The story takes place in an ecology with surprising monsters — giant talking monstrous crabs, for example. Alex has always been interested in monsters and crabs, as she explains here. While my characters can be a little prickly, Alex created characters I wanted to hug: Four young misfits overcome repeated disaster and betrayal, build a team, and come to trust each other and themselves. The story of personal growth is compelling, not just about found family, which is a great thing, but an even more rare discovery, found competence.
You can read reviews of Empress of Dust at Ancillary Review of Books and History that Never Was.
We hope to see you on the 30th!
I’ve been growing houseplants for a half-century, and before that, I lived in a house filled with my mother’s plants. She also kept a garden. I’ve always liked plants.
Now, I don’t just like them — or even love them. I respect them. And I have opinions.
According to a work attributed to Aristotle but is probably by Nicolaus of Damascus, On Plants, “the plant is not a living creature, because there is no feeling in it.” That kind of thought has permeated Western philosophy since ancient times: Plants rank one step up from rocks, capable of reproduction and growth, but not movement or sensation.
A lot of people still think that way, and to them, plants are valuable only insofar as they provide some benefit to us such as food and medicine, or habitat for a charismatic animal like monarch butterflies, or inspire easy awe like giant sequoias. If not, that particular plant species has no interest or value.
Plants, of course, make our lives possible on Earth. They produce the oxygen and food we need from sunlight. But thinking that way can still fall into the trap of anthropocentrism.
After all these years of living alongside plants at home and after all the research needed for the novel series, for me every plant has become a miracle. Shepherd’s purse, a common weed growing in vacant lots and cracks in sidewalks, has seed pods that explode! In the soil, the seeds exude mucilage to capture and digest nematodes and insects to provide nutrients for the seedling — the seeds are protocarnivorous!
Plants have so much drama in their lives, and we walk right past as if these “weeds” were little more than rocks. (As if rocks weren’t also awesome.)
Every plant is fighting for its life, and they are all remarkably equipped to win the fight under ordinary circumstances. But we live in extraordinary circumstances, and many species can’t adapt fast enough to the loss of habitat, invasive species, poaching, the rapid spread of disease and pests using human transport, over-foraging, and climate change.
Plants need friends. I hope I’m a good friend, and I hope I’ve convinced you to care about plants, too. They’re not here to serve us. We are all in this together, and our task is to share this good green Earth.
***
The official launch of the novel Usurpation, the third book in the Semiosis trilogy, will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 30, at Volumes Bookcafe, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. Everyone’s invited! More details here.
Over at SciFiScavenger on YouTube, I spend a half-hour chatting with host Jon Jones about plants, Usurpation, and my other books, and I share some recommendations for books I love.
Here’s the list — by the way, you can find more of my book opinions at Goodreads.
Life Beyond Us, edited by Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law, and Susan Forest. The European Astrobiology Institute created this anthology of 27 short stories by top authors about first contact with life unlike our own. Each story is matched with an essay by a scientist. Exciting and educational.
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. If you liked Semiosis, you’ll like this. Similar theme, lots of spiders, and a transcendent ending.
Meet Me in Another Life, by Catriona Silvey. If you like romance novels, this is the science fiction novel for you. Two people keep meeting, but why? I wept like a baby at the ending.
Langue[dot]doc 1305, by Gillian Polack. If you like historical fiction, this is the science fiction novel for you. Scientists travel back in time to France in 1305, and they underestimate the people who live there. Worse, they don’t listen to the historian traveling with them.
Babel, by R.F. Kuang. As a translator, I found the magic system fascinating and meticulously constructed. Better yet, the story is solidly anchored in historical fact.
17776: What football will look like in the future, by Jon Bois and Graham MacAree. This is a daring multimedia SF experiment, and not really about football. I’ll never forget the tragic death of the heroic light bulb. Find it here: https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football
The Marlen of Prague: Christopher Marlowe and the City of Gold, by Angeli Primlani. Magic is the only thing that might save Europe from the Thirty Years’ War. The author clearly understands Prague and the theater.
In Defense of Plants, by Matt Candeias, PhD. How can you resist a book with an entire chapter about “The Wild World of Plant Sex”?
The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai. Not SFF at all, sorry, but I live in Chicago, and this novel accurately reconstructs the disaster of AIDS in the gay community in the 1980s. You might consider it historical fiction.
You’re invited to the Deep Dish speculative fiction reading on Thursday, October 3, at 6:30 p.m. at Volumes Bookcafe, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, sponsored by the Speculative Literature Foundation. I’ll be one of the rapid-fire readers.
***
The launch of my novel Usurpation will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 30, at Volumes Bookcafe. Everyone’s invited! More details here.
***
At Goodreads, I reviewed The Word, by JL George, a science fiction novel that shows how the power of compassion can fuel a rebellion in a dehumanized near-future Britain.
In the novels Interference and Usurpation, the Pax Institute is located in Bayonne, France. Someone asked me why.
Well, basically, because I’ve been there (the photo is of me and my husband), so I knew Bayonne had a good climate for growing rainbow bamboo — which is the most important detail, of course.
Beyond that, I got a bit of a feel for the location, just enough to be able to imagine it a few centuries in the future: What’s the general layout of the city? Where are the hills? How far away is the ocean?
If you’re considering a visit to Bayonne, I recommend it. The historic heart of the city has beauty and charms that date back to before the Middle Ages. Nearby are wide beaches and forested parks, and not far to the south are the gorgeous foothills of the Pyrenees. The city hosts a variety of festivals — and, of course, there’s French and Basque food to enjoy.
In the novels, I hope I’ve respected Bayonne’s traditions and heritage, but I feel I should apologize for the damage I inflicted on the future city and its people. Je m’excuse pour le dérangement.
***
Reminder: The ebook of the first novel in the Semiosis trilogy is on sale during September at Amazon for only $2.99. It includes an excerpt from the third book in the trilogy, Usurpation, which will be released on October 29.
If you want an autographed copy of my next novel, Usurpation, and you won’t see me in person, you can order it through Volumes Books, a locally owned Chicago bookstore. The book comes out on October 29. International shipping can be arranged individually.
Find it at this link:
https://volumesbooks.com/book/9781250809162
Not every mind is human, and that’s a challenge for science fiction authors. It’s hard enough to write from a different human point of view: We’re a varied species, each one of us with our own experiences and quirks, but at least we can talk to each other. Non-humans … well, they never have long conversations with us, alas.
Yet, if we’re going to write science fiction, we can’t let that stop us. For my novel Semiosis, I needed to write from the point of view of a plant — an alien plant, of course, not an Earthly one. All right, where to start?
Obviously, we know some things about Earth plants, so I began researching them. What is their experience of life? For one thing, they’re under a lot of stress. Growing seasons are short, and weather is uncertain.
Spring ephemerals, such as trilliums and snowdrops, illustrate this anxiety. They grow and flower as early as possible in spring, sometimes right through snow, dangerous though that must be. They catch the sunlight before trees put out leaves and cast shade. They offer nectar to the first bees that wake up after winter, monopolizing their attention. Then these plants go dormant until next spring: That’s the extreme step they must take to get their day in the sun. They leap upward at the first hint of springtime.
Plants compete for sunlight and actively fight over it. A common houseplant called the asparagus fern (Asparagus setaceus) has pretty, lacy leaves – and thorns it can anchor into other plants and climb over them. Its aggression has earned it the status of noxious weed in some parts of Australia. Roses have thorns for the same reason. If they happen to starve other plants by blocking out the sunshine, that’s just survival of the fittest.
Vines climb up trees to get sunshine without the cost of growing a sturdy trunk. Other plants may grow large leaves quickly to cast shadows on their neighbors, or poison the ground to keep out competition.
So, plants lead lives of quiet desperation — in constant combat and relying on an arsenal of weapons.
The book What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz documents what his fellow botanists have long known. A plant can see, smell, feel, hear, know where it is, and remember. “Plants are acutely aware of the world around them,” he writes.
Trees, like us humans, have social lives. InThe Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, German forester Peter Wohlleben describes how trees of the same species in forests create communities that help each other, enjoying much longer, healthier lives than isolated city trees. Trees also make decisions, such as when to drop their leaves, which can be a life-or-death gamble on the coming weather.
Plants are alert to their surroundings, and they can recall the past and plan for the future. They’re gregarious, and being isolated hurts them.
As we would expect from highly aware, social creatures, they relate to other species including animals. They grow flowers to attract pollinators, they grow fruit to encourage animals to spread their seeds, and they enter into symbiotic relationships with animals to further their needs. If nutrients are especially scarce, plants turn carnivorous. (The leaves depicted on the cover of Semiosis and the plant in the photo are sundews. The drops are glue to catch insects.)
Through photosynthesis, plants create their own energy. We can’t know how that feels, although we can observe how sap courses up and down stems and through leaves, and how carefully plants arrange their leaves to capture light efficiently. Plants that store food for winter know how much food they have because they stop and shed their leaves when they think they have enough: They have body awareness.
Plants differ from us in one essential way: They have no set body type. Humans have two arms, two legs, and a standard-sized brain. A tree has as many branches and roots as it can support. A single tree can be huge, spreading out from its roots to create its own grove, and some can live for centuries, even millennia.
A possible personality for a plant has begun to emerge: anxious, active, aggressive, alert to its surroundings, impatient, reflective, and forward-looking, physically singular, self-aware, long-lived, manipulative of animals, and painfully lonely if it has no companions of its own species. Add intelligence and we have a point of view:
“Growth cells divide and extend, fill with sap, and mature, thus another leaf opens. Hundreds today, young leaves, tender in the Sun. With the burn of light comes glucose to create starch, cellulose, lipids, proteins, anything I want. Any quantity I need. In joy I grow leaves, branches, culms, stems, shoots, and roots of all types. … Intelligence wastes itself on animals and their trammeled, repetitive lives. They mature, reproduce, and die faster than pines, each animal equivalent to its forebearer, never smarter, never different, always reprising their ancestors, never unique.”
Semiosis