Sufficiently advanced magic: Fantasy and Science Fiction
From Mary Shelley to Mervyn Peake, British authors have played an outsized role in shaping global Fantasy and Science Fiction. In this guest edition, global majority authors draw on their cultures of origin and on life in Britain today to inject new ideas into the genre.
Edited by: Vassili Christodoulou
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The woke mind virus
Vassili Christodoulou
"Elon Musk is, in a quite literal sense, the most important sci-fi storyteller on the planet today. And also, I should add, its most important protagonist."
Vassili Christodoulou on Elon Musk's critique of contemporary Science Fiction and Fantasy that it is 'too woke'.
Big school
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
"One day you will return, and I will explain that love cannot survive trickery. It should only be given freely."
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ's short story about a mother and child, with the child finding herself in an unfamiliar world.
The short history of my mother
Priya Sharma
"There are so many versions of my mother’s life, depending on who she’s telling it to. Now that she’s dying, the tales are so tall they cast backward shadows over the past."
Priya Sharma brings myth and magic to her tale reflecting the experience of an immigrant beginning life in a new country.
Gabi and Clarice
Polly Ho-Yen
"Clarice had an upturned smile most of the time, but despite the sophistication of her programming, the smile didn’t reach her eyes."
Polly Ho-Yen's science fiction short story is about parenting a child in isolation and the effects of technology on the children we raise.
Why can’t we see him?
Naomi Ishiguro
"‘Alex,’ Sara hissed through the door, and the sound of the dice stopped immediately, replaced by a silence that reminded her of someone being circled by wasps at an outdoor tea party."
Why can't we see him is a horror story by about a strange disease by the author of Common Ground and Escape Routes, Naomi Ishiguro.
Terrible things are happening to donkeys
Lavie Tidhar
"‘Donkeys first came to England with the Romans. Did you know that?’ Amelia wasn’t sure which of the donkeys had spoken."
Fantasy writer Lavie Tidhar's surreal fable is reminiscent of post-war European theatre absurdism.
Einstein in Peckham
Femi Fadugba and Vassili Christodoulou
Femi Fadugba's papers on quantum physics are found in the journal that once published Albert Einstein, the inspiration for his novel The Upper World - a science fiction thriller about love, violence and time travel that just happens to take place in Peckham.
Vassili Christodoulou in conversation with Femi Fadugba, a physicist whose YA novel The Upper World has been adapted for film, starring Daniel Kaluuya.
Fantasy of Manners
Zen Cho and Vassili Christodoulou
"The role imperialism played in my life was total. My ancestors would not have come to Malaysia if not for imperialism. I would not be living in the UK if not for imperialism."
Zen Cho talks to Vassili Christodoulou about her post-colonial fantasy novels drawing on Malaysian myths and English magic.