My review of Saudade by Thomas Trofimuk

My review of Thomas Trofimuk's Saudade is available at the Ottawa Review of Books

I really, really liked this surreal, cinematic, mystery about the nature or memory and the need to attend to everything all the time because this moment is all we have.

I particularly liked the surprise ending, which I didn't see coming until the last few chapters. But then I forced the book on my daughter, who literally read only the first page before saying, "Does it end with ___". Yes, yes it did. So your mileage may vary re "surprise", but the writing here is quite exceptional, so still highly recommended.

My review of Borderlanz

Borderlanz: Tales from the Edges by Douglas Smith

[review originally appeared in the April 2026 Ottawa Review of Books]

A four-time winner of the Aurora Award (for Canadian speculative fiction and fantasy) and shortlisted for the Sunburst Award (a more literary, juried Canadian Speculative Fiction Award), Douglas Smith is one of Canada’s most successful speculative fiction writers. I favourably reviewed his Dream Rider Saga in previous issues of ORB, and his stories have been widely reprinted, including internationally in dozens of other languages. Smith has literally written the book on marketing short stories: Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. If you’re a writer, it’s a must have guide.

This is Smith’s third short fiction collection and gives a good cross section not merely of his career, but of the range of speculative fiction. Zombies, werewolves, wizards, ghosts, dragons, spacebar-tall-tales, alien encounters, parallel universes, hard-boiled detectives, and straight-up horror are all represented in one or more of the 15 stories included. With the possible exception of the spacebar story, however, none of them is what you might expect from those labels. Smith always has an original take that elevates his stories above the regular clichés of any of those subgenres. I have almost no interest in zombies, for example, but damn if Smith didn’t come up something completely new, timely, and genuinely disturbing in “Gypsy Bikers Coming Home”.

I had read several of these stories before, when they originally appeared in On Spec, Pulp Literature, Tesseract6, F&SF Magazine, and so on, and I was surprised how well they have stood up over time and re-reading. It’s not unusual for different readers to each take something different from a story, but only a truly brilliant author can write something where the same reader can discover a new level or a new relevance when re-reading it at different point in their life. My least favourite story is probably the title story, “Walker of the Shifting Borderland”, in which a god-like being keeps shifting realities. It’s a solid enough short, just not to my particular taste—and I am clearly in the minority because it won that year’s Aurora for short fiction.

My favourite story is . . . a tough call. “If I Should Fall Behind”, about a couple of kids escaping across parallel universes, is filled with inventive word play and emotional depth, even if it left me totally creeped out. Similarly, “Radio Nowhere” is an eerie masterpiece of setting and a haunting story of love and obsession. “Doorways” is a chilling tale of a house controlled by a deceased madman. “Fiddleheads” is about a young boy’s longing for his missing brother and is the most disturbing of them all. I usually stay away from horror, but Smith’s stories are deeply memorable because they always have something more to say about life and love.

“The Stopover” is a short-short everyone can relate to. That’s all I can say because: no spoilers. But it’s perfect.

“The Balance” is the one story in the collection that is not SF, Smith’s personal story of the terror of becoming a new father. That’s probably the story to which I related the most, so another favourite.

It’s not all dark or moody fiction, though. “Murphy’s Law”, the spacebar story, is an explicitly comic piece; “What’s in a Name?” is essentially a satire of the Sword & Sorcery genre; and “Oregon Shooters” is a similarly entertaining mixture of detective noir and alien abduction. These lighter pieces provide a nice break between the more intense stories, while the three shapeshifter stories (parts of a series) provide engaging adventures while still retaining the best of Smith’s lyrical style.

Each story comes with an individual afterword, which adds a nice element. I strongly dislike collections where the author introduces each story, prejudicing one’s perceptions when the story should speak for itself. Afterwords are great, though. I would not have gotten the many musical (Springfield) references, for example, without Smith telling us, and it’s often fascinating knowing where a story comes from.

Novels tend to be an easier sell than short fiction collections, but I’ve never really understood why. The short, sharp punch of a perfectly constructed piece seems like something perfect for a commute, a waiting room, or before bed. Smith’s collection is a good one, guaranteed to take your mind off things while still saying something important about life, the world, and our place in it.

My Review of "A Guy Just Passing Through"

As a critic, I’m often interested in the lives of writers. Understanding how writers' backgrounds shaped their worldview and inspired their characters can deepen one’s enjoyment of their work. Matthew Hughes is a prolific Canadian SF&F, crime, and historical author whose work I greatly enjoy. I was therefore inordinately happy when he made his personal memoir, A Guy Just Passing Through, available to the public.

Much of the book focuses on his early upbringing in England, Ontario, and BC within a family that was vaguely criminal, frequently poor, and notably dysfunctional.

Hughes remarks in these early chapters that “although criminality does not gallop though my father’s gene pool, it at least ambles along.” This criminal-adjacent upbringing provides a glimpse into, and perhaps some understanding of, a world we seldom see. It also goes some way to explaining the sense of authenticity one gets reading Hughes’ crime novels, and his frequent selection of henchman as the point of view character, even in his fantasy and science fiction.

Growing up poor was even more fundamental. In Hughes’ words:

The non-poor live in a firmer, more dependable world. . . . They don’t have to take gravity into account every time they take a step because gravity has been a constant throughout their lives. But the poor don’t get reliable gravity. Sometimes you go to take an ordinary step and find yourself spinning off into space.
. . .
It makes you different … You live in a less friendly, less amenable universe.

It is not difficult to see how this has influenced Hughes’ writing. For example, one of my favourite Hughes’ concepts is the universe changing every few thousand years between the principles of cause and effect, and those of sympathetic magic. At the change-over to magic, Hughes inserts Henghis Hapthorn, a Sherlock Holmes figure frustrated to discover that deductive reasoning has suddenly been rendered uselessly obsolete. A fair number of Hughes’ protagonists find themselves similarly confronted with a sudden turn in circumstances that leaves their footing precarious indeed.

Unexpectedly yanked carpets is certainly a theme of Hughes own life. Growing up, Matt frequently had little or no warning when his family would abruptly pick up stakes and move to escape loan sharks or other creditors. Consequently, Matt found himself in a new school every few semesters, seldom staying long enough to make meaningful friends or put down roots. Thus, he became something of a loner, A Guy Just Passing Through. Unsurprisingly, several of his protagonist are similarly rootless. (The novel Template comes to mind, where searching for his origin story, our protagonist discovers he doesn’t actually have one.)

Even as an adult, Hughes could never quite catch a break. The working title for the book was One Damned Thing After Another, which fits well, but I would like to suggest that But Then, Unfortunately. . . might also have been appropriate. For instance, he and some friends designed a wildly successful board game (300,000 pre-orders), but then, unfortunately . . . it was the year Nintendo came out, essentially ending the era of board games. His first novel was picked up by a big-time agent, who loved it, but then, unfortunately . . . the agent retired before he placed Hughes’ book. Hughes managed to place it himself with a big-name publisher, but then, unfortunately . . .the company was bought out and dissolved before his book could be distributed. (I discovered Fools Errant in a department store’s bin of remaindered books, and became a life-long Huges’ fan, but I was essentially the only one who ever saw it.) Another editor bought his second novel, but then, unfortunately. . . that editor quit the publisher, orphaning Hughes’ book. And so on. Hughes should be a household name like George R.R. Martin (who is also a Hughes fan) but you need to be in the right place at the right time for a writing career to really take off.

Which is not to suggest that he has had no successes. Hughes’ is justly proud of having provided a much more stable home for his sons than he had. He was for years a prominent speechwriter to government Ministers and corporate heads, wrote for Alfred Hitchock’s, and Asimov’s magazines, was a fixture in the pages of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, wrote comedy for CBC radio, and has published over 40 books. His magnum opus, What the Wind Brings (originally published by Pulp Literature, a wonderful Canadian literary press) is currently being shopped around to the majors. The novel is outstanding, and I fully expect Hughes to become an “overnight success” —after a mere 40 years of labouring in the fields.

His self-image as a homeless drifter, however, is again central in retirement, as he works as an itinerate house-sitter, moving from sheep farm to Italian villa to wherever next his career as sitter takes him. Abandoning all one’s earthly goods for a life of travel and adventure, taking only a laptop and a single suitcase, sounds romantic, but Hughes’ memoir quickly disabuses the reader: house-sitting is the only way of attaining room and board while pursing the writing life.

Which brings us back to why Hughes memoir is so compelling. Like Stephen King’s On Writing, Hughes memoir is the story of the writing life; unlike King’s, Hughes doesn’t end up a multi-millionaire. With an IQ of 145, Hughes is a smart guy; he is one of speculative fiction’s best writers; and he always went for any opportunity that presented itself. But none of that is enough these days to become the next Stephen King or James Patterson. Cobbling together enough different writing opportunities to make a living is what the modern writing life actually looks like. This is, therefore, a must-read for any aspiring writer.

It’s also an engaging read for anyone else. A Guy Just Passing Through isn’t a celebrity tell-all or another great-man history, but the story of a Canadian everyman*. Hughes sees himself as just another guy in a long line of nobodies, but that’s what makes this book so relatable. Reading this memoir feels like when an uncle visits to regale one with stories of distant relatives: some of that history is already familiar, even repetitive; some of it is about people one doesn’t really know; but all of it is somehow fascinating, compelling, and intimate.

A Guy Just Passing Through is independently published by the author.

* Hughes commented that he always considered himself "an oddball", not 'an everyman'.

This review originally appeared in The Ottawa Review of Books, March 2026.

Review of "Redshirts Sometimes Survive"

Finnian Burnett is one of those writers who explodes on the scene apparently overnight. A prominent figure in the Canada Writes online community, Burnett is suddenly a keynote speaker at writers’ conferences, a writer in residence, a workshop leader, and well, seemingly everywhere. Of course, like every overnight success, there is, in fact, a long backstory as a writer, in this case, as a practitioner of, and advocate for, flash fiction. Having attended a couple of their panels I can attest their reputation as an inspiring presenter is well deserved.

Burnett’s success mirrors the steady rise in interest in the flash fiction form. Practically, every fiction market I can think of now lists flash as a submission category, and a quick count gives me 360 markets that only accept flash/micro fiction. Burnett stands out not just as a superb practitioner of the form, but as a leading author of the novel-in-flash. Burnett’s The Price of Cookies (also from Off Topic Publishing, 2024) is a series of connected flash pieces that weave a cohesive snapshot of community, demonstrating both the potential of the flash genre and Burnett’s mastery of it.

So, when Redshirts Sometimes Survive was announced, I immediately dropped everything to review it.

In spite of the title, edshirts Sometimes Survive isn’t about Star Trek exactly. No one can doubt Burnett’s passion for Star Trek or the fandom that has grown up around it, but the stories themselves are focused on relationships, family, and community. The common thread here are stories about people surviving intolerable situations, having breakthrough moments, or finding community based on their love of this or that Star Trek series or character. Burnett uses Star Trek to illuminate the lives of the neurodivergent, the queer, the introverted, the body shamed, and anyone at a significant decision point. The stories are about the universal experiences of loneliness and love, of awfulness and wonder, with Star Trek allusions as merely shorthand for the values and priorities we ought to fight for in an increasingly dark era.

One of the major takeaways for me is how multiple iterations of Star Trek have served three generations of pre-teens and teens as the Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood sequel. Just as Mr. Rogers told every child watching they were “special just the way you are”, Star Trek’s progressivist future told Mr. Rogers alumni, “you’re fine the way you are, it’s society that needs to grow up and accept you for who you are”. Not that Burnett draws that comparison, but one can’t read these stories without realizing Star Trek’s significance in providing both positive role models and an escape from cruel reality. Flash titles like, “When Captain Picard Was My Dad”, “Romulans Stole Our Dad”, “What Would Janeway Do?” “Wesley Crusher Faces His Fears”, and “Don’t Shut Up, Wesley” provide a hint of how individual pieces reflect Star Trek’s role as both substitute parent and alternate reality. Burnett’s flash demonstrates how Star Trek’s values influenced generations of kids to become stronger, kinder, better people.

The exception, of course, is “There Are No Fat People on Star Trek”. This simple flash piece reminds us how Star Trek—and by extension, all mass media—body-shame. Okay, fair enough. Nobody can claim Star Trek is perfect, and it’s essential to acknowledge areas where the series falls down. Full marks to Burnett for holding Trek accountable on this one.

Not all of the stories are about kids and growing up, of course. Adulting gets its fair share of attention here as well. “Ten Forward, 3 a.m.” was every Thursday in my twenties and thirties; and “One Last Frontier” deals with elder care in a way that hit way too close to home for me, both as a carer and as a guy getting older. “The Spock 10-Step Method to Surviving a Narcissist” seems like sound advice for work and intimate relationships (especially step 11), “New Life and New Civilizations” is about finding your crew whatever the basis for your found family, and “Beam Me Up, Cat” is about half the pet owners I know. There wasn’t a single story I couldn’t relate to, even when it wasn’t any part of my own lived experience. These fragments all address themes that are essentially universal, at least for those woke enough to ‘get’ Star Trek. All of which begs the question, why a novel-in-flash? What makes flash collections, linked or not, so special?

The answer is these are standalone pieces. No matter how cohesively they fit together, they need to be digested individually. Whereas novels and short stories build up to some point, flash is only the piece with the point. Burnett packs a wallop in each perfectly crafted story. They are the gut punch that lays you out, forcing you to rethink your life. Or, they are a triumphant moment when things work out, and you excuse yourself to the kitchen so no one will see you crying. I can’t read more than one of these at a time, nor would I want to, when there is so much to reflect on, relate to, or savour.

Redshirts Sometimes Survive is due out from Off Topic Publishing, April 2026; available now for pre-order.

My Review of Hemo Sapien

My review of Emily Weedon's Hemo Sapien from Dundurn Press is up at Ottawa Review of Books.

https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/hemo-sapiens-by-emily-a-weedon

My Review of Starship Librarians

My review of Starship Librarians, edited by Shannon Allen and JR Campbell, from Tyche Books is now up at Ottawa Review of Books.

https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/starship-librarians-edited-by-shannon-allen-and-jr-campbell

My Reviews on the 2025 Aurora Ballot

My speculative fiction reviews in The Ottawa Review of Books in 2024 are on the Aurora Award ballot for 2025.

The Reviews were:

1. Review of The Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol 1. Stephen Kotowych (Ed.), Ottawa Review of Books, January 15, 2024.
2. Review of The Lost Expedition by Douglas Smith, Ottawa Review of Books, March 15, 2024.
3. Review of The Downloaded by Robert Sawyer, Ottawa Review of Books, April 16, 2024.
4. Review of Shadow Matter by S. E. Mayse, Ottawa Review of Books, May 16, 2024.
5. Review of Super-Earth Mother by Guy Immega, Ottawa Review of Books, June 15, 2024.
6. Review of Kyber by Chadwick Ginther, and Shared World by Ball, Chomichuk, Gillespie and Ginter, Ottawa Review of Books, Sept 15, 2024.
7. Review of Zebra Meridian and Other Stories, by Geoffrey W. Cole, Ottawa Review of Books, Nov 18, 2024.
8. Review of Starlost Unauthorized and the Quest for Canadian Identity by D.G. Valdron, Ottawa Review of Books, Dec 15, 2024.

Tha Auroras are voted by he membership of the Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction Association. Memberships are a modest $10/year.

My thanks to Ian Shaw for publishing my reviews.

Review of "Muscle and Other Stories"

My review of Matthew Hughes' "Muscle and Other Stories" is up at the Ottawa Review of Books.

https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/muscle-and-other-stories-by-matthew-hughes

Heavens to Murgatroyd

I have two stories, "Murgatroyd and the Clerk" and "Murgatroyd and the AI" in the Lintusen Press anthology, Heavens to Murgatroyd. My entries are "Murgatroyd and the Clerk" and "Murgatroyd and the AI".

I also reviewed the collection (not including my own stories, of course) for the Ottawa Review of Books.

Review of Noah Chinn's Lost Lives

My review of Noah Chinn's lost Lives (and the rest of the triology) is up at Ottawa Review of Books. https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/lost-lives-by-noah-chinn

Review of Valdron's Starlost Unauthorized

My review of Starlost Unauthorized and the Quest for Canadian Identity is up at the Ottawa Review of Books.

Guest Spot on Re-Creative

I'm featured in Episode #58 of the Re-Creative Podcast.

Hosts Joe Mahoney and Mark A. Rayner invited me to come on Re-Creative, the podcast about art and writing that inspire writers. I took a long time to think about which writer or artist had had a big impact on me, but they had already talked about Den Valdron's The Mermaid's Tale and Douglas Adams, and I was debating amongst so many other possibilities (Terry Pratchett, Samual Marchbanks, Dave Duncan, Guy Gavriel Kay, Shane Koyzan, Lois McMaster Bujold, etc etc) that I just couldn't focus: until I read R. F. Kuang's Yellowface (See my text review). I could not shut up about how brilliant and relevant Yellowface is, a must-read for every aspiring writer, so that became the natural topic to propose to Mohoney and Rayner.

We also talk about a bit about my writing, editing, and breakfast.

Reviews of Shared World and Kyber

Reviews of Kyber by Chadwick Ginther, and Shared World by Ball, Chomichuk, Gillespie and Ginter, Ottawa Review of Books, Sept 15, 2024. Preprint in The N3F Review of Books, July 2024.

Review of Guy Immega's Super-Earth Mother

My review of Guy Immega's Super-Earth Mother is now up at the Ottawa Review of Books

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Review of Robert J. Sawyer's The Downloaded (and other books)

Robert Sawyer is Canada's best known science fiction writer and has a huge fan following. His books are so popular, the trade paperback edition of his latest release, The Downloaded, hasn't even come out yet, but pre-orders are so high, the publisher has already had to go back for a third printing. Reviewing Sawyer's books feels a bit redundant because copies fly off the shelf faster than I can review them. Allow me, then, to address this review to those not already familiar with Robert Sawyer and his work.

Sawyer writes the purest form of science fiction in which he either takes current trends and extrapolates their long-term implications, or comes up with completely unique, sometimes jaw-dropping ideas and then works through their most subtle ramifications. His novel and subsequent TV series, Flashforward, for example, presents the premise that everyone on Earth simultaneously gets a two-minute glimpse of what they are doing in the near future. What do you do to comprehend, embrace, or avoid the future you just saw? Can the future be changed, or is knowing what happens what creates that future? Flashforward is every time travel paradox story ever, but inverted, so instead of risking changes by some meddling explorer going back in time, everyone is moving forward together. Sawyer's analysis is both deeply philosophical and character-driven. Told through the personal journeys of its characters, the novel is a fast-action read, but leaves you with questions about destiny and self-determination for years after.

Or, take my personal favourites, The Quintaglio Ascension trilogy, in which Sawyer examines the sociological impacts of Galileo, Darwin, Freud by following their equivalent breakthroughs in the evolution of an alien civilization. It is a thought experiment of extraordinary subtly that allows us to acknowledge the role of great thinkers and key paradigm shifts within our own culture. One of Sawyer's earliest series, I still highly recommend it.

And if you enjoyed the Oppenheimer movie, reading Sawyer's The Oppenheimer Alternative, is a must-read.

His latest release, The Downloaded, is similarly thought-provoking as Sawyer combines a bunch of unrelated future scenarios,

The initial premise is that astronauts have been uploaded to separate virtual worlds while their bodies remain in cryonic suspension for years as their starship travels the immense distance to another star. Downloaded back into their bodies, they discover that things have not gone exactly as planned. That's only the first of a half dozen major twists, but my "no spoiler" policy means I can say no more. As with Flashforward, the book has an array of character studies, philosophical and moral issues to grapple with, and the underlying theme of what choices one would make in the characters' shoes.

Almost as fascinating are the implications of Sawyer's choices for the publication of The Downloaded. Sawyer has always been in demand on TV and radio as a commentator on any and all future trends. He is a popular keynote speaker at writing conventions as an industry insider and a master of social media and marketing. Where he leads, many authors follow. So it was with special interest that we saw The Downloaded first released as an audiobook exclusive from Audible.

Audiobooks have been steadily increasing in popularity and market share, so it's no surprise that Audible (the largest player in the industry) approaches some of the top commercial authors, not just for their books, but to bring them out first and as full play productions. Audible's The Downloaded stars some top Canadian talent—Brendan Fraser, Luke Kirby, Vanessa Sears, Colm Feore, Andrew Phung—and is a compelling drama. I like to listen to audiobooks as I do household chores; The Downloaded was so edge-of-the-seat, I found myself actively looking for chores to take on, so I could keep listening.

Further, while many authors would sell their souls for a contract with one of the Big Five publishers, Sawyer—and increasingly other big-name authors—have been turning their back on these corporate publishers for smaller regional presses for their print editions, and self-publishing their own e-book editions. The print version of The Downloaded is therefore being released this May by Shadowpaw Press, a relatively new regional press from Saskatchewan founded by SF author, Edward Willett.

I confess, I haven't actually read the print version, but base this review on the audiobook. I understand there are minor adaptations in the audio version to make the story workable in play format, though the story is obviously fundamentally the same, and I have no hesitation recommending them both on that basis. If you have chores to do, check out the audiobook; if you want the authentic reading experience, The Downloaded is available now for pre-order from the usual outlets. Then, well, there are 25 other Robert J. Sawyer books to enjoy in e-book, print, or audiobook.

Review of The Lost Expedition

The Lost Expedition is the third and final volume in the Dream Rider trilogy. The first two novels, (The Hollow Boys, reviewed in ORB November 2022, and The Crystal Key, reviewed May 2023) were wildly successful, garnering critical acclaim including an Aurora Award and a juried IPA award. If you haven’t already read the first two Dream Rider books, you need to start there; if you’re already read those, I won’t need to sell you on this one because you will have already been waiting for answers and lined up for this one.

The story concerns rich comic artist,18-year-old Will; his street-wise girl-friend, Chase; and her kid brother, Fader. All three have mysterious but limited powers that have allowed them to enter dreams and move between the worlds of the multiverse, battling an as yet unidentified villain or power. The central mystery is to find out what happened eight years ago that caused their parents to go missing, and their powers to manifest. Thus, the search for the lost expedition.

I compared the first volume to a superhero comic or a graphic novel—sans graphics; I compared the second to the thrill of a 1950s movie serial, once a regular part of Saturday matinées. This time, The Lost Expedition put me in mind of A Wrinkle in Time. Both books are about the conflict between order and chaos, both place unreasonable demands on their young protagonists, both have the same sweeping scope that engages one’s sense of wonder. Evoking the same emotional response, The Lost Expedition took me back sixty years to the exact weekend I discovered A Wrinkle in Time and the forgotten memory of reading in the dark after lights out.

Looking back as an adult, though, I far prefer Smith’s world building and politics to Madeleine L’Engle’s. Smith has written a series that is far more inclusive and far less elitist than L’Engle’s. Smith’s characters represent different social classes, ethnicities, abilities and weaknesses. The Dream Rider series is targeted to today’s modern YA audience and so better suited to current sensibilities. Whoever reads this book will find at least one POV character with whom they can identify.

Which is not to say The Lost Expedition doesn’t have a few flaws. I was annoyed and distracted early on by a logical flaw in the plot, only partially mitigated by the characters recognizing that inconsistency themselves twenty pages on, and that was therefore an important clue. I was similarly annoyed that one of the characters, Nix, can only remember key facts when it is time for the next clue to be handed out—again, somewhat mitigated by a reasonable explanation in the denouement. Withholding key information from the reader in a mystery feels like a bit of a cheat, even though Smith eventually explains why and the reader has to grudgingly admit it all makes sense. Still, waiting until the end to explain everything from all three books in the final chapters of this one meant the denouement went on a bit too long after the grand climax. Indeed, there are several occasions throughout the novel when the characters get bogged down explaining things to each other while the action grinds to a stop.

Notwithstanding these minor reservations, The Lost Expedition is a solid ending to a great series. The various mysteries are finally revealed in all their intricate complexity; there are several twists I totally did not see coming; and there is a sweeping majesty to the world building we have not seen since—well, since A Wrinkle in Time.

Marathoning all three books at once is probably best, so that one can keep all the fiddly bits of the mystery in mind and so that the denouement in book three becomes proportionate to the series as a whole. If you haven’t done so already, you should package up all three volumes to gift to any young adults in your life—or any adult in your circle nostalgic for the Golden Age of science fiction fantasy.

The Lost Expedition is published by Spiral Path Books.

This review originally appeared on The Ottawa Review of Books.

Review of Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction

This review originally appeard in The Ottawa Review of Books January 15, 2024.

When John Robert Columbo came out with the first anthology of Canadian speculative fiction, Other Canadas, in 1979, it was the first time most of us realized that there even was a Canadian version of the genre. To cobble the collection together, however, Columbo had to scour all of history and pad the list with the likes of Cyrano de Bergerac and Jules Verne—non-Canadians who happen to have set a story in the polar north—to fill his pages. By 1985, the field had expanded sufficiently that Judith Merril was able to solicit enough contemporary Canadian SF to fill the first Tesseracts anthology.

When I co-edited the fifth Tesseract anthology over a decade later, we had over 400 submissions, and I confidently predicted further explosive growth for Canadian SF&F. The Tesseract series is now up to number 22 though the series has morphed into themed anthologies rather than a general survey of the Canadian genre. Imaginarium 2012 was the first attempt at reprinting the “Year’s Best” but the series ended with Imaginarium 4. We therefore have lacked a “Best of Canadian SF&F” series for the last eight years.

Enter Stephen Kotowych, the editor of the Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol.1 (2023).

If I thought working on Tesseracts 5 was challenging, I cannot begin to imagine trying to keep on top of a field that has expanded continuously over the last thirty years. The undertaking, especially by a single individual rather than a team backed by an established publisher, is outrageously audacious. And yet, Kotowych seems to have pulled it off. With 37 entries from 24 different magazines and 6 anthologies—a total of thirty different venues—the collection is certainly a representative survey of the field. The stories range from hard science fiction through fantasy, horror, and fevered dreams to pure CanLit. Inevitably, as with any anthology, tastes differ and one might quibble whether this or that entry is the “best” Canadians have to offer, but there’s no question Kotowych has nailed the breadth of what’s out there. Story quality ranged from “solid” to “outstanding” with the overall weighting tipped heavily towards the “excellent” end. If I’m honest, I think this collection is better than the one I co-edited, a reflection of how Canadian speculative fiction has expanded and matured in the decades since.

Best of all, the collection introduced me to a number of authors with whom I had not previously been acquainted. How had I missed, for example, Suyi Davies Okungbowa? I was shocked to find a stack of novels by this University of Ottawa prof, whose “Choke” is one of the outstanding stories in the current collection. That one discovery is worth the price of the collection five times over. Although “Choke” feels as if it would be comfortable in any CanLit magazine, it originally appeared in Tor.Com, so legitimately qualifies as speculative fiction. But wow! The freshness of the phrasing, the passion of the writing, the absolute resonance of the contemporary experience just floored me. That’s six new novels added to my To-Be-Read pile right there.

Similarly, I had no idea Nebula-nominated Ai Jiang was Canadian. Her “Give me English” is a great opening to the anthology, not just because it’s a gem of a story, but because it nicely illustrates how the current generation is infusing fresh themes and viewpoints into the Canadian genre. I have banged on for years how Canadian SF differed from that of the American (and to a lesser extent, the British) mass market SF&F, but I have to concede that the (English-language) Canadian genre often lacked culturally diverse voices, beyond some influences from Quebec. Jaing’s story speaks not just to the immigrant experience, but to the post-colonial, anti-capitalist themes that have become a natural part of the SF scene. Chelsea Vovel’s “Mischif Man” story of a Métis superhero similarly takes on Settler colonialism, and Lavigne’s “Choose Your Own” is one of the best feminist pieces ever: wincingly on target.

These and the majority of the entries fit my argument that Canadian speculative fiction is oddly optimistic despite the often downbeat premises. The future is on fire in Premee Mohamed’s “All that Burns Unseen”; perpetual war and exploitation are central to Michelle Tang’s “Vihum Heal”; oppressive religion stifles life in Kate Hearfield’s “And in the Arcade”; Charlotte Ashley’s “Distant Skies” features capitalist manipulation of our destinies through genetics; Holly Schofield’s “Maximum Efficiency” has robot soldiers vs humans; KT Brysk’s “Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead” is set in hell, for heaven’s sake. And yet, life goes on and people (or other sentients) find a way. I love this approach of ordinary people bumbling through tough times to carve out acceptable outcomes. It is the literature we need amidst the dumpster fire we’re living through.

Reynold’s “Broken Vow: The Adventures of Flick Gibson, Intergalactic Videographer” provides some needed comic relief, and the fiction is broken up by the inclusion of nine rather good, accessible poems.

Overall, it is a great collection, a great reflection on what Canadian speculative fiction has to offer, and a great first entry in which one can only hope will continue as an annual series.

The Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction Vol.1 (2023) is published by Ansible Press.

Review of State of the Arc

This review originally appeared in The Ottawa Review of Books, Nov 2023.

State of the Ark: Canadian Future Fiction Edited and Introduction by Lesley Choyce
Reviewed by Robert Runté

As soon as I heard about this anthology, I knew I had to have it for my collection, because I already have Lesley Choyce’s and John Bell’s pioneering 1981 Visions from the Edge, the first anthology of speculative fiction from Atlantic Canada; and Choyce’s 1992 Ark of Ice, a now classic anthology of Canadian speculative fiction (Canada being the ark in question). State of the Ark represents the current state and range of speculative fiction in Canada 2023, including checking in with some of the same authors from the 1992 volume. It is, like its predecessors, an excellent cross-section of the Canadian speculative genre at one moment in time.

At one end of the spectrum, we have traditional space fiction: Robert Sawyer’s “Star Light, Star Bright”, is an approachable story of Dyson spheres, interstellar colonies, and good parenting. Sawyer’s stories are always about exploring the less-than-obvious implications of big scientific concepts and bringing those down to the human level. This short is an example of why Sawyer is arguably Canada’s most successful science fiction writer.

Julie E. Czerneda’s “Foster Earth” is similarly a classic first-contact story: humans trying to figure out how to communicate with The Silent with absolutely nothing to go on . . . and coincidentally, another story about great parenting. I love it!

My favourite SF story, though, is Julian Mortimer Smith’s “Read-Only Memory”, which explores near-future tech to absolutely nail contemporary attitudes and relationships. I’m definitely going to have to hunt down more of Smith’s work.

Jeremy Hull’s “Bright Future” covers the similar ground of virtual technology and relationships, but this time from a parenting angle (hmm, starting to see a trend here). C.J. Lavigne’s “Side Effects May Include” is a sharply Canadian take on medical tech’s relationship with late-stage capitalism.

Other more or less traditional SF entries included Spider Robinson’s story of slow interstellar travel; John Park’s “Hammerhead” other-world colonization; Terri Favro’s “Winter Pilgrimage of the Storytellers”, a multi-world portal novel; and Hugh A.D. Spencer’s “Shoebox or The End of Civilization in Five Objects or Less”, a delightful satire of pompous museum staff, the ill-treatment of freelances, and the comeuppance Spencer (himself, a museum consultant) would wish upon them. Greg Bechtel’s “2115: Notes Toward Nine Stories of the Future” examines recent articles to project nine mutually exclusive punchlines for future fiction.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the stories that lean heavily into CanLit, like Katherine Govier’s “VIXEN, SWAN, EMU, BEAR”. I really enjoyed her writing which connected each totem to moments in the narrator’s relationships. This story could comfortably have found a home in any Canadian literary journal. If anything, I questioned whether the speculative element was a bit thin, really only appearing in the last page—it felt a little tacked on. I was, therefore, not entirely surprised to read in her bio that the story had indeed originally appeared in Exile Literary Quarterly and the ending was added for this volume. I am not complaining though! It’s a marvelous piece of writing, and I am always appreciative that our best literary writers are open to stepping across genre lines, which elsewhere are often considered impenetrable. The number and influence of Canadian literary writers crossing over into speculative fiction is one reason our version of the genre is distinct from the mass market American version.

Between these two poles are stories that blur the line between literary and speculative genres.

Élisabeth Vonarburg’s “Terminus” is a parallel world story, but mostly about relationships, identity and self-worth. Casey June Wolf’s “Substance. Light” works some of the same themes, but with an even more poetic bent. Both allude to suicide (so: trigger warning).

Candas Jane Dorsey’s “The Card is the World” a dark--or maybe darkly funny--story plays with literary structure to deliver a commentary on science, suits, and--inevitably--relationships. (And almost as an aside, the invisibility of older women.) Tim Wynne-Jones’ “Eternity Leave” has flying saucers, but it is really a story about imagination, the literary life, and a beautiful day. The story nicely balances literal narrative and Wynne-Jones’ whimsical style.

Lesley Choyce’s own “Tantramar: A Love Story in a Time of Crisis” is either speculative fiction if we believe the characters, Canlit if they are delusional. It could go either way, but it works as a love story, so is categorization important?

I judge The State of the Ark an accurate presentation of current trends in the genre. Old writers and new are both represented, the new bringing a hopefully growing diversity of voices. There is an underlying optimism running through all these stories, even the dystopian ones, which is perhaps new. The collection as a whole is more literary than idea-driven, more about the writing than story-telling, which I would argue reflects the growing maturity of the speculative genre overall, even beyond Canada. Better yet, the majority of the stories here straddle these divides to combine the best of both CanLit and SF. There is room for both space ships and poetic language in Canadian speculative fiction, and even the straight-forward SF all has an identifiable Canadian slant to it.

The State of the Ark is a ‘must-have’ for anyone wondering what Canadian future fiction fares these days.

The State of the Ark is published by Pottersfield Press, 2023.

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