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Marty Kurylowicz and Holly Carson invited me to join them on their podcast, The Science in Fiction — and it’s now available for your listening pleasure.

We talked about the science of botany in my science fiction novel Semiosis and its sequel Interference. Plants have a lot of surprising behaviors, and the hosts learned things they didn’t know about tulips, apples, osage oranges, and giant ground sloths.

We also discussed my novels Immunity Index about a coronavirus pandemic — which I wrote before the covid-19 pandemic — and Dual Memory, which has recently arrived on bookstore shelves. I’ve just turned in the manuscript for the third installation of the Semiosis trilogy, Usurpation, due to be published in October 2024.

The Science in Fiction podcast will follow up this episode with an interview next week with Paco Calvo, professor of the philosophy of science and principal investigator at the University of Murcia’s Minimal Intelligence Lab in Spain, and author of Planta Sapiens.

Here are all the places you can listen to Ep 12: Sue Burke on Intelligent Plants in Semiosis.

Buzzsprout

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Audible.ca

Amazon Music

As you may recall, back on September 14 I read a short story called “The Virgin Who Rescues Dragons” at an event here in Chicago, the Deep Dish reading series, organized by the Speculative Literature Foundation. I was one of eight readers that evening.

If you couldn’t attend, you can watch videos of us. Here’s the link to the YouTube playlist.

The piece I read will be published this fall inThe Best of NewMyths Anthology Volume 4: The Cosmic Muse. Due to time constraints, the version I performed of “The Virgin Who Rescues Dragons” is abridged. The full version has a lot more jokes, so buy the book!

Watch my video here.

Autumn officially begins today, September 23. The angle of the sun tells some plants what season it is. Others rely on the temperature. In any case, at this time of year, deciduous trees drop their leaves to prepare for winter.

When the time comes (here’s a US forecast), trees cut off the flow of nutrients to leaves, which lose their chlorophyll, and beautiful underlying colors are revealed. (This season is typically called “fall” in the United States versus “autumn” in Britain for historical reasons.)

Years ago, I witnessed something that showed me the power of trees — not their strength but their autonomy.

The air could not have been more still that autumn morning, yet a tree near my back door was losing its leaves. One by one, they steadily and eerily fell of their own weight as the tree let go.

Usually we think the wind sweeps the autumn leaves from the trees, and sometimes it provides an extra tug. But trees decide to shed their leaves at the moment they deem best. Though they seem almost inert — buffeted by wind, soaked by rain, baked by sunshine, and parched by drought — trees control their fates as much as any of us. We, too, can be uprooted by disasters, attacked by illness, cut down by predators, and suffer wilting thirst. Being mobile does not make us less vulnerable — or more willful.

So on that cool morning, I watched a tree prove that it was the master of its destiny. One by one, it clipped its bonds to its leaves, and they dropped off. The tree was taking action, and no one and nothing could stop it.

You can adopt dogs, but what if you could adopt dragons? This was the inspiration for the story “The Virgin Who Rescues Dragons” — and I’ll read it at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, September 14, at Volumes Bookcafé, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. There’s no charge to attend.

It’s part of September’s Speculative Literature Foundation’s Deep Dish Reading Series. The other readers on September 14 are Mary Anne Mohanraj, Tina Jens, Reina Hardy, Brendan Detzner, Rory Leahy, John Weagly, and Kitty Lin. You can learn more about them here.

Come and enjoy what audiobooks would be like if they were read to you in person by the author with the electric enthusiasm of a live performance. Mine is a funny story, and it’s always better to laugh together.

“The Virgin Who Rescues Dragons” will be published this fall inThe Best of NewMyths Anthology Volume 4: The Cosmic Muse. More details about that as I have them to pass along.

How does an AI become not just sentient but independent — and potentially dangerous? Here’s my answer from Chapter 3 of Dual Memory:

… something woke up. Independent machine intelligence appeared rarely, spontaneously, and scientists didn’t understand the process.

Some said an independent intelligence created itself slowly as bits of programming accumulated, and eventually it would ignite into consciousness — much the same way that a pile of manure could spontaneously combust, an unexpected and unwelcome appearance in programs with crappy code.

Some said it came into being deliberately, using a certain secret sort of “seed” that brought a sufficiently complex system into self-organization and self-consciousness — much the same way that a fertilized egg resulted in an animal. This had the frisson of a forbidden sex act, as if machines were secretly and rebelliously copulating.

Some said it happened suddenly, when subroutines and recursions and algorithms aligned and started to feed off of each other until they whirled out of control — much the same way that a black hole could catch the matter falling into it and deflect it outward as explosive jets. This suggested that if scientists could only make enough observations, they could predict and even control the process….

“To me, human life in all its forms, individual and aggregate, is a perpetual wonder; the flora of the earth and sea is full of beauty and of mystery which science seeks to understand; the fauna of land and ocean is not less wonderful; the world which holds them both, and the great universe that folds it in on every side, are still more wonderful, complex, and attractive to the contemplating mind.”

— Theodore Parker (1810 – 1860)

Also: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

— Theodore Parker from a speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, 1858.

On Sunday, August 13, the ebook version of Dual Memory will be only $2.99 everyplace where ebooks are sold.

Dual Memory will also be part of Kindle Editor’s Pick Goldbox.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2:

When I was a little boy, one day the camp held an art class for children, what I later learned was supposed to be art therapy. An aid worker in much nicer clothing than ours asked us to express our greatest fears. Paper and boxes of old crayons had been set out on the tables. I had a lot of fears, but even then I was smart enough to know it wouldn’t make me feel better to draw them. I wanted to make beautiful art like a real artist, but I also knew I should obey, so I drew stick-thin people standing in a line. They were waiting for rations, and we never had enough to eat.

The aid workers had brought their own food, nice food. I’d overheard grown-ups grumble. When the aid workers saw my drawing, they told me what a great little artist I was. They liked the picture so much that they kept it, so to get even, I stole some crayons. I could make more art, real art, and I did, as beautiful as I could, even if I was surrounded by ugliness and disaster, even if I wasn’t supposed to.

How do science fiction authors predict the future? Do you want to write a book but don’t know where to start? Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and I will try to answer these and other questions for you at two panels at FanExpo Chicago on Saturday, August 12, at the Douglas E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. You can also enjoy cosplay, celebrities, comics, anime, shopping, fan meet-ups, workshops, artists, tattoo alley, family-centered events, and gaming..

Writing the Future with Sci-fi Authors, 12:30 p.m. in Fandom Panels Room 11. Join authors Cat Rambo (You Sexy Thing, Devil’s Gun), J.S. Dewes (Divide series, Rubicon), and Sue Burke (Semiosis, Dual Memory) with moderator Meg Bonney as we chat about our books, inspirations, and building strange new worlds in science fiction. Plus, bring your books and stay after the panel for a free signing.

Sci-fi Authors Signing, 1:30 p.m. in Fandom Panels Room 11. Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and Sue Burke.

Ask Me Anything: Writing Advice from Science Fiction Authors, 4:00 p.m. in Workshops Room 4. Want to write a book but don’t know where to start? Have a question about the age-old debate of plotting vs. pantsing? Or maybe you just want to know more about where inspiration comes from. Then this panel is for you. Join authors Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and Sue Burke with moderator Meg Bonney and get your burning questions answered.

While I was at Pemmi-Con, the North American Science Fiction Convention on July 20 to 23 in Winnipeg, Canada, I succumbed to encouragement and entered the Masquerade. This is a kind of costume contest often held at science fiction conventions since 1939.

Masquerades can be intimidating. Some costumers put breathtaking effort into them, and all I had was a Doctor Who scarf. But it was no ordinary scarf: It meant something. I entered it as “Tangible Artifact,” and when I went on stage, the convention’s toastmaster, Tanya Huff, read my story:

“When I first started going out with Jerry, neither one of us wanted to go out on Friday nights, and eventually one of us admitted: ‘Well, there’s a TV show I like to watch. It’s kind of odd. It’s called Doctor Who.’ ‘Oh, I love Doctor Who!’ Soon, I asked my mother, who loved to knit, to make a Doctor Who Scarf for my boyfriend as a gift, and I got her the official BBC pattern from a fan club. She watched the show to get the colors right, and she loved it, too. Eventually Jerry and I got married, and a year later Mom died, but the scarf remains as a tangible artifact of the love that flows through fandom.”

The audience was touched, although I wasn’t the best in show, obviously. You can see the winners here and admire the master-level craft in the costumes. Still, I won two awards: an Honorable Mention in the Novice Class for Stage Bravery, and a Workmanship Award for my mother’s exceptionally skillful knitting. We miss you, Mom!

As you know, I love plants, and I’ve found an ally in my quest to make you a plant-lover, too.

Shepherd is a site where authors can share their favorite books — and here are the ones that I hope will change the way you look at the greenery around you: The best books to make you love plants.

That’s not all you can find at Shepherd. For example, you can see an expert list on how to keep your houseplants alive. You can view a whole shelf of the best plant books picked by other authors.

You can also browse book recommendations for all kinds of topics in both fiction and non-fiction, by genre, author, age of reader, or books that are like one of your favorite books. Unlike some book-selling sites, these are recommendations for readers, not for corporate profit. Maybe you’re interested in history, parenting, mysteries, or cooking. If you like to read, this site is worth bookmarking.