<description>This is the first SF in SF to be recorded at our new venue, The Lost Chuch, a nonprofit performance space in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.

PAOLO BACIGALUPI is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, for Shipbreaker. Paolo's work often focuses on questions of sustainability and the environment, most notably the impacts of climate change. His writing has appeared in WIRED, High Country News, Salon.com, OnEarth Magazine, The Magazine of F&amp;amp;SF and Asimov's. His short fiction has been anthologized in various "Year's Best" collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for three Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story of the year. His collection Pump Six &amp;amp; Other Stories was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. 

His debut novel The Windup Girl was named by TIME as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and also won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Internationally, it has won the Seiun Award (Japan), The Ignotus Award (Spain), The Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis (Germany), and the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire (France).  His other work includes a sequel to Shipbreaker, The Drowned Cities, Zombie Baseball Beatdown, The Doubt Factory, and The Water Knife.  His long-awaited new novel, Navola, releases July 9, 2024. "With echoes of Renaissance Italy, The Godfather, and Game of Thrones, Navola is a stunning feat of world-building and a mesmerizing depiction of drive and will." https://windupstories.com/

TIM PRATT  is a Hugo Award-winning SF and fantasy author and editor, with over 30 books to his credit, most recently the kinky multiversal space opera The Knife and the Serpent.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, the Best American Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Subterranean, and Tor.com, among many other places.  He’s written several roleplaying game tie-in fantasy novels, including one for Forgotten Realms and five for Pathfinder Tales.  In October 2007 he began publishing a series of urban fantasies featuring ass-kicking sorcerer Marla Mason, and you can find the “Marlaverse” online at https://marlamason.net/

His debut collection Little Gods was published in 2003,and his second, Hart &amp;amp; Boot &amp;amp; Other Stories, 2007, was a World Fantasy Award finalist.  He won a Hugo Award (for “Impossible Dreams” in 2007), and has been nominated for a Nebula Award, Stoker Award, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a couple of Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, a Seiun Award, a Scribe Award, and two Ignotus Awards, among others. In 2004 he was a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.  Tim is a senior editor and occasional book reviewer at Locus, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field. Since 2013 he’s published a new story every month at www.patreon.com/timpratt, he makes jokes on Bluesky @timpratt.org. and you can see what else he’s up to online at https://www.timpratt.org/ 

He lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife and kid.
</description>

Author readings and discussion

This is the first SF in SF to be recorded at our new venue, The Lost Chuch, a nonprofit performance space in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.

PAOLO BACIGALUPI is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, for Shipbreaker. Paolo's work often focuses on questions of sustainability and the environment, most notably the impacts of climate change. His writing has appeared in WIRED, High Country News, Salon.com, OnEarth Magazine, The Magazine of F&SF and Asimov's. His short fiction has been anthologized in various "Year's Best" collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for three Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story of the year. His collection Pump Six & Other Stories was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. 

His debut novel The Windup Girl was named by TIME as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and also won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards. Internationally, it has won the Seiun Award (Japan), The Ignotus Award (Spain), The Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis (Germany), and the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire (France).  His other work includes a sequel to Shipbreaker, The Drowned Cities, Zombie Baseball Beatdown, The Doubt Factory, and The Water Knife.  His long-awaited new novel, Navola, releases July 9, 2024. "With echoes of Renaissance Italy, The Godfather, and Game of Thrones, Navola is a stunning feat of world-building and a mesmerizing depiction of drive and will." https://windupstories.com/

TIM PRATT  is a Hugo Award-winning SF and fantasy author and editor, with over 30 books to his credit, most recently the kinky multiversal space opera The Knife and the Serpent.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, the Best American Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Subterranean, and Tor.com, among many other places.  He’s written several roleplaying game tie-in fantasy novels, including one for Forgotten Realms and five for Pathfinder Tales.  In October 2007 he began publishing a series of urban fantasies featuring ass-kicking sorcerer Marla Mason, and you can find the “Marlaverse” online at https://marlamason.net/

His debut collection Little Gods was published in 2003,and his second, Hart & Boot & Other Stories, 2007, was a World Fantasy Award finalist.  He won a Hugo Award (for “Impossible Dreams” in 2007), and has been nominated for a Nebula Award, Stoker Award, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a couple of Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, a Seiun Award, a Scribe Award, and two Ignotus Awards, among others. In 2004 he was a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.  Tim is a senior editor and occasional book reviewer at Locus, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field. Since 2013 he’s published a new story every month at www.patreon.com/timpratt, he makes jokes on Bluesky @timpratt.org. and you can see what else he’s up to online at https://www.timpratt.org/ 

He lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife and kid.


July 2024: Paolo Bacigalupi and Tim Pratt


<description>ROBIN SLOAN was raised and educated in Michigan, and attended Michigan State University, where he co-founded the literary magazine Oats and graduated with an economics degree in 2002. He worked for about a decade at the intersection of media and technology before publishing his first novel. In 2003, he founded the SnarkMarket blog with some friends, and then moved to the SF Bay Area in 2004 to work, first at Current TV as a media strategist/interactive producer, and then at Twitter as a media manager.

His new novel, Moonbound, has just been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has developed a special website as a companion to the novel, here: https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/

Sloan's first novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, was released in 2012. His second novel, Sourdough, was released in September 2017. He has written fiction and commentary for many publications, including the NY Times, the Atlantic, and MIT Technology Review. His novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan produce olive oil under the Fat Gold brand, harvested off leased land in Sunol, California.

RUDY RUCKER is, quite honestly, one of the most important and visionary figures in science fiction literature working today. A writer, mathematician, artist, and a Silicon Valley computer science professor emeritus, Rucker is regarded as a contemporary master of science-fiction, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. He received the very first Philip K. Dick award for his cyberpunk novel, Software, and another for Wetware. It's worth noting that his novel Software (1982), was the very first SF work to introduce the (by now very familiar) notion of transferring a human personality to a bot. What's more, Software was the first SF novel in which robot minds are evolved, rather than being designed.

As well as writing cyberpunk, Rucker writes SF in a realistic style known as transrealism—where the author uses SF archetypes to symbolize the concerns of the characters. Rucker's forty published books include non-fiction books on the fourth dimension, infinity, and the meaning of computation. Rucker has also worked on several software packages; he runs a podcast of his talks; and you can browse some of his works online, including his autobiography Nested Scrolls and his Complete Stories. https://www.rudyrucker.com/

CLARA WARD lives in Silicon Valley, California, on the border between reality and speculative fiction. Be the Sea, their latest novel, takes place in the same near future as “Dream the Sea,” available here  online from Small Wonders Magazine and is a science fantasy journey across the Pacific featuring sea creature perspectives, human tech, chosen family, and the world's best chocolate. Clara's short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Decoded Pride, and The Arcanist. When not using words to teach or tell stories, Clara uses wood, fiber, and glass to make practical or completely impractical objects. More of their words along with crafted creations can be found at https://clarawardauthor.wordpress.com/

</description>

ROBIN SLOAN was raised and educated in Michigan, and attended Michigan State University, where he co-founded the literary magazine Oats and graduated with an economics degree in 2002. He worked for about a decade at the intersection of media and technology before publishing his first novel. In 2003, he founded the SnarkMarket blog with some friends, and then moved to the SF Bay Area in 2004 to work, first at Current TV as a media strategist/interactive producer, and then at Twitter as a media manager.

His new novel, Moonbound, has just been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He has developed a special website as a companion to the novel, here: https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/

Sloan's first novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, was released in 2012. His second novel, Sourdough, was released in September 2017. He has written fiction and commentary for many publications, including the NY Times, the Atlantic, and MIT Technology Review. His novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan produce olive oil under the Fat Gold brand, harvested off leased land in Sunol, California.

RUDY RUCKER is, quite honestly, one of the most important and visionary figures in science fiction literature working today. A writer, mathematician, artist, and a Silicon Valley computer science professor emeritus, Rucker is regarded as a contemporary master of science-fiction, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. He received the very first Philip K. Dick award for his cyberpunk novel, Software, and another for Wetware. It's worth noting that his novel Software (1982), was the very first SF work to introduce the (by now very familiar) notion of transferring a human personality to a bot. What's more, Software was the first SF novel in which robot minds are evolved, rather than being designed.

As well as writing cyberpunk, Rucker writes SF in a realistic style known as transrealism—where the author uses SF archetypes to symbolize the concerns of the characters. Rucker's forty published books include non-fiction books on the fourth dimension, infinity, and the meaning of computation. Rucker has also worked on several software packages; he runs a podcast of his talks; and you can browse some of his works online, including his autobiography Nested Scrolls and his Complete Stories. https://www.rudyrucker.com/

CLARA WARD lives in Silicon Valley, California, on the border between reality and speculative fiction. Be the Sea, their latest novel, takes place in the same near future as “Dream the Sea,” available here  online from Small Wonders Magazine and is a science fantasy journey across the Pacific featuring sea creature perspectives, human tech, chosen family, and the world's best chocolate. Clara's short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Decoded Pride, and The Arcanist. When not using words to teach or tell stories, Clara uses wood, fiber, and glass to make practical or completely impractical objects. More of their words along with crafted creations can be found at https://clarawardauthor.wordpress.com/



June 2024: Robin Sloan, Clara Ward and Rudy Rucker


<description>HANA LEE is a biracial Korean American writer who also builds software for a living. She has an undying love for fantastical stories in all their forms, especially video games, and a habit of writing to moody indie rock playlists. A graduate of Stanford University, she's always loved the dark, the gothic, and the occult, so there's usually a picturesque ruin of some kind lurking in the background of her novels.

Her short writing has appeared in Fantasy Magazine and Uncanny Magazine, and her first novel, Road to Ruin, is out now from Saga Press (debuting at SF in SF!) It's the first book in the Magebike Courier series, as well as a love letter to her favorite movie, Mad Max: Fury Road. She lives in California with her partner and two beloved and ridiculously fluffy cats. Learn more about this author who's definitely off to a great start at https://authorhanalee.com/about

SAMANTHA MILLS is a multiple award-winning author living in Southern California. Her debut science fantasy novel, The Wings Upon Her Back, is out now from Tachyon Publications. She has published a dozen short stories, appearing in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod and others. In addition to winning the Nebula, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial awards for her short story “Rabbit Test” in 2023, Sam has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, made the Locus Recommended Reading List and the BSFA long list multiple times, and was included in the best-of anthologies The New Voices of Science Fiction and The Year's Best Science Fiction &amp;amp; Fantasy 2023.

Sam grew up in Southern California, where she still lives with her family and cats. She graduated from the University of Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Pre- and Early Modern Literature, and received a Master's in Information and Library Science from San Jose State University. In the other half of her life, she is a trained archivist specializing in primary documents, with a particular focus on helping local historical societies and research libraries preserve and manage their collections. When Sam isn't working, writing or taking care of children, she's watching B-movies, binding books, and crocheting stuffed animals. You can find more about this talented author at www.samtasticbooks.com.

AITLIN CHUNG has lived in the Bay Area her whole life. She is a teacher, an expert eavesdropper, a fan of infomercials, and is known to be a supporter of superstitions. She has on many occasions been justly accused of being a Luddite. She lives in Oakland with her husband and their cat. Ship of Fates was her first book, and a Foreword INDIES Finalist.

Out from Lanternfish Press, Ship of Fates is a historical fantasy weaving together western fairy tales and Asian-American history and mythology. Beginning in the gridlocked harbor of San Francisco's Barbary Coast, with a ship hung with red paper lanterns draws crowds eager to gamble and drink. Aboard it, the fates of two young women will be altered irrevocably—and tied forever to that of an ancient lighthouse keeper who longs to be free. Set against the backdrop of Gold Rush-era San Francisco's Chinese immigrant community, Ship of Fates is a coming-of-age fairy tale that stretches across generations. We look forward to more fantastic fiction from this local author – in the meantime, learn a bit more here: https://www.breakingtheglassslipper.com/2020/07/23/five-questions-with-caitlin-chung/
</description>

HANA LEE is a biracial Korean American writer who also builds software for a living. She has an undying love for fantastical stories in all their forms, especially video games, and a habit of writing to moody indie rock playlists. A graduate of Stanford University, she's always loved the dark, the gothic, and the occult, so there's usually a picturesque ruin of some kind lurking in the background of her novels.

Her short writing has appeared in Fantasy Magazine and Uncanny Magazine, and her first novel, Road to Ruin, is out now from Saga Press (debuting at SF in SF!) It's the first book in the Magebike Courier series, as well as a love letter to her favorite movie, Mad Max: Fury Road. She lives in California with her partner and two beloved and ridiculously fluffy cats. Learn more about this author who's definitely off to a great start at https://authorhanalee.com/about

SAMANTHA MILLS is a multiple award-winning author living in Southern California. Her debut science fantasy novel, The Wings Upon Her Back, is out now from Tachyon Publications. She has published a dozen short stories, appearing in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod and others. In addition to winning the Nebula, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial awards for her short story “Rabbit Test” in 2023, Sam has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, made the Locus Recommended Reading List and the BSFA long list multiple times, and was included in the best-of anthologies The New Voices of Science Fiction and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2023.

Sam grew up in Southern California, where she still lives with her family and cats. She graduated from the University of Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Pre- and Early Modern Literature, and received a Master's in Information and Library Science from San Jose State University. In the other half of her life, she is a trained archivist specializing in primary documents, with a particular focus on helping local historical societies and research libraries preserve and manage their collections. When Sam isn't working, writing or taking care of children, she's watching B-movies, binding books, and crocheting stuffed animals. You can find more about this talented author at www.samtasticbooks.com.

AITLIN CHUNG has lived in the Bay Area her whole life. She is a teacher, an expert eavesdropper, a fan of infomercials, and is known to be a supporter of superstitions. She has on many occasions been justly accused of being a Luddite. She lives in Oakland with her husband and their cat. Ship of Fates was her first book, and a Foreword INDIES Finalist.

Out from Lanternfish Press, Ship of Fates is a historical fantasy weaving together western fairy tales and Asian-American history and mythology. Beginning in the gridlocked harbor of San Francisco's Barbary Coast, with a ship hung with red paper lanterns draws crowds eager to gamble and drink. Aboard it, the fates of two young women will be altered irrevocably—and tied forever to that of an ancient lighthouse keeper who longs to be free. Set against the backdrop of Gold Rush-era San Francisco's Chinese immigrant community, Ship of Fates is a coming-of-age fairy tale that stretches across generations. We look forward to more fantastic fiction from this local author – in the meantime, learn a bit more here: https://www.breakingtheglassslipper.com/2020/07/23/five-questions-with-caitlin-chung/


May 2024: Samantha Mills, Hana Lee and Caitlin Chung


<description>Gail Carriger writes books that are hugs, mostly comedies of manners mixed with steampunk, urban fantasy, and sci-fi (plus cozy queer joy as G. L. Carriger). These include the Parasol Protectorate, Custard Protocol, Tinkered Stars, the San Andreas Shifter series for adults, and the Finishing School and Tinkered Starsong series for young adults. In addition, she's published the nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey. She is published in many languages, has over a million books in print, over a dozen New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and Romantic Times.

Amy Sundberg is the author of the recently released YA science fiction novel My Stars Shine Darkly as well as the novel To Travel the Stars, a YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space. Her novels feature intrepid heroines, refined prose, and questions of agency, power, and possibility. She also reports on local news with an emphasis on public safety and the criminal legal system in Seattle and Washington State. You can read her work at the Urbanist and in her newsletter Notes From the Emerald City. Amy spent most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area, but she is now living in Seattle with her little dog Nala. 

Izzy Wasserstein is a queer and trans woman who was born and raised in Kansas and currently lives in California. She teaches writing and literature, writes poetry and fiction, and shares a house with a variety of animal companions and the writer Nora E. Derrington. A Lambda Literary Award finalist, she's the author of two poetry collections, When Creation Falls (Meadowlark Press (2018) and This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, the short story collection All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From, and her brand-new novella, These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Tachyon, 2024).
</description>

Gail Carriger writes books that are hugs, mostly comedies of manners mixed with steampunk, urban fantasy, and sci-fi (plus cozy queer joy as G. L. Carriger). These include the Parasol Protectorate, Custard Protocol, Tinkered Stars, the San Andreas Shifter series for adults, and the Finishing School and Tinkered Starsong series for young adults. In addition, she's published the nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey. She is published in many languages, has over a million books in print, over a dozen New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and Romantic Times.

Amy Sundberg is the author of the recently released YA science fiction novel My Stars Shine Darkly as well as the novel To Travel the Stars, a YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in space. Her novels feature intrepid heroines, refined prose, and questions of agency, power, and possibility. She also reports on local news with an emphasis on public safety and the criminal legal system in Seattle and Washington State. You can read her work at the Urbanist and in her newsletter Notes From the Emerald City. Amy spent most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area, but she is now living in Seattle with her little dog Nala. 

Izzy Wasserstein is a queer and trans woman who was born and raised in Kansas and currently lives in California. She teaches writing and literature, writes poetry and fiction, and shares a house with a variety of animal companions and the writer Nora E. Derrington. A Lambda Literary Award finalist, she's the author of two poetry collections, When Creation Falls (Meadowlark Press (2018) and This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, the short story collection All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From, and her brand-new novella, These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Tachyon, 2024).


March 2024: Gail Carriger, Amy Sundberg, and Izzy Wasserstein


<description>Please join SF in SF for a fabulous evening of Frankenstein and his Monster, Mary Shelley, an exciting space caper story and science fiction fun with authors David D. Levine and David M. Sandner! 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAVID D. LEVINE is the author of the space-opera caper novel, The Kuiper Belt Job, recently published by Caezi SF &amp;amp; Fantasy. https://www.arcmanorbooks.com/caeziksf.  The Kuiper Belt Job is a caper story in space, a mash-up of Ocean’s 11 and The Expanse with a dollop of Firefly and Leverage. It’s an ensemble piece with complex character relationships and a twisty, compelling plot, but beneath the entertaining surface it raises deep questions about identity and personhood. In a world where minds can be copied, what does it mean to be “me”?

Although Levine began as a writer of technical articles, he has long had an interest in reading and writing science fiction. He has primarily written short fiction, with his first professional fiction sale in 2001. A long-time member of SF fandom and an early member of MilwApa (the Milwaukee amateur press association), he also co-edited a fanzine, Bento, with his late wife, Kate Yule, and has served as a Convention Committee Chair for Potlatch. His short story “Ukaliq and the Great Hunt” appeared in The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology Volume 2 (2003). In 2010, he spent two weeks in a simulated Mars habitat of the Mars Society, in Utah.  He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, and blogs at https://daviddlevine.com/blog/.


DAVID M. SANDNER is an American academic and author, and a professor in the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics at California State University, Fullerton.  Sandner has a master’s degree from San Francisco State University and a doctorate from the University of Oregon.  His doctoral thesis was titled The Fairy Way of Writing: Fantastic literature from the romance revival to Romanticism, 1712–1830, and was completed in 2000.

Professor Sandner’s latest book, The Afterlife of Frankenstein: A Century of Mad Science, Automata, and Monsters Inspired by Mary Shelley, 1818-1918, is just out from Lanternfish Press, along with a novella, His Unburned Heart (2024) from the horror press, Raw Dog Screaming.

Afterlife focuses on Dr. Frankenstein’s monster —  one of the most iconic figures in English literature, popularized through decades of writing, film, and comedy. But even before the invention of film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein profoundly impacted scores of writers, gathering force for the genre that would ultimately become what we know as science fiction.  In this anthology, scholar of the fantastic David Sandner explores the first hundred years of Frankenstein’s influence. This collection of short stories and excerpts from work published between 1818 to 1918 demonstrates what a pioneering myth Frankenstein has always been—from the very day when lightning first struck and it opened its eyes on the world.

His recent fiction also includes the novelettes Mingus Fingers (with Jacob Weisman, Fairwood Press, 2019), and Hellhounds (with Jacob Weisman, Fairwood Press, 2022, with a complete novel, Egyptian Motherlode, due out from Fairwood Press in late 2024.

Sandner’s nonfiction includes The Fantastic Sublime: Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-century Children’s Fantasy Literature (Greenwood, 1996), The Treasury of the Fantastic (with Jacob Weisman, Tachyon Publications, 2013), and Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now (McFarland, 2020).
</description>

Please join SF in SF for a fabulous evening of Frankenstein and his Monster, Mary Shelley, an exciting space caper story and science fiction fun with authors David D. Levine and David M. Sandner! 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAVID D. LEVINE is the author of the space-opera caper novel, The Kuiper Belt Job, recently published by Caezi SF & Fantasy. https://www.arcmanorbooks.com/caeziksf.  The Kuiper Belt Job is a caper story in space, a mash-up of Ocean’s 11 and The Expanse with a dollop of Firefly and Leverage. It’s an ensemble piece with complex character relationships and a twisty, compelling plot, but beneath the entertaining surface it raises deep questions about identity and personhood. In a world where minds can be copied, what does it mean to be “me”?

Although Levine began as a writer of technical articles, he has long had an interest in reading and writing science fiction. He has primarily written short fiction, with his first professional fiction sale in 2001. A long-time member of SF fandom and an early member of MilwApa (the Milwaukee amateur press association), he also co-edited a fanzine, Bento, with his late wife, Kate Yule, and has served as a Convention Committee Chair for Potlatch. His short story “Ukaliq and the Great Hunt” appeared in The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology Volume 2 (2003). In 2010, he spent two weeks in a simulated Mars habitat of the Mars Society, in Utah.  He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, and blogs at https://daviddlevine.com/blog/.


DAVID M. SANDNER is an American academic and author, and a professor in the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics at California State University, Fullerton.  Sandner has a master’s degree from San Francisco State University and a doctorate from the University of Oregon.  His doctoral thesis was titled The Fairy Way of Writing: Fantastic literature from the romance revival to Romanticism, 1712–1830, and was completed in 2000.

Professor Sandner’s latest book, The Afterlife of Frankenstein: A Century of Mad Science, Automata, and Monsters Inspired by Mary Shelley, 1818-1918, is just out from Lanternfish Press, along with a novella, His Unburned Heart (2024) from the horror press, Raw Dog Screaming.

Afterlife focuses on Dr. Frankenstein’s monster —  one of the most iconic figures in English literature, popularized through decades of writing, film, and comedy. But even before the invention of film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein profoundly impacted scores of writers, gathering force for the genre that would ultimately become what we know as science fiction.  In this anthology, scholar of the fantastic David Sandner explores the first hundred years of Frankenstein’s influence. This collection of short stories and excerpts from work published between 1818 to 1918 demonstrates what a pioneering myth Frankenstein has always been—from the very day when lightning first struck and it opened its eyes on the world.

His recent fiction also includes the novelettes Mingus Fingers (with Jacob Weisman, Fairwood Press, 2019), and Hellhounds (with Jacob Weisman, Fairwood Press, 2022, with a complete novel, Egyptian Motherlode, due out from Fairwood Press in late 2024.

Sandner’s nonfiction includes The Fantastic Sublime: Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-century Children’s Fantasy Literature (Greenwood, 1996), The Treasury of the Fantastic (with Jacob Weisman, Tachyon Publications, 2013), and Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now (McFarland, 2020).


February 2024: David D. Levine & David M. Sandner


The Podcast from Science Fiction in San Francisco - A perfect fit. Located in the City of Sn Francisco, we host a monthly series of author readings from the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and genre literary fields, hosted by Terry Bisson or Cliff Winnig.

Sign In

The SF in SF Podcast

Details

Recent Episodes