I have further updated my series of essays on ‘Science Fiction in South Africa’ with a fascinating précis of a Ph.D. thesis completed by Dr. Elzette Steenkamp on ‘Identity, belonging and ecological crisis in South African speculative fiction’. For those of you may want access to the full Doctoral thesis, completed at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, it can be viewed/downloaded here:

http://eprints.ru.ac.za/2977/1/STEENKAMP-PhD-TR12-75.pdf

Elzette also has a chapter in a worthy book, edited by Gerry Canavan and Kim Stanley Robinson, entitled: ‘Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction.’ Below – Permission obtained to upload cover picture: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Planets-Ecology-Science-Fiction/dp/0819574279/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388771670tag%3Dgerrcana0b-20&sr=8-1 

Sunday Times in South Africa have a free viewing of 40 fantastic short visions of South Africa in the year 2034 by top local authors, which is well worth visiting: http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2014/05/12/read-sunday-times-future-fiction-edition-featuring-short-stories-set-in-2034-from-40-top-sa-authors/

Newly out is much exciting reading for speculative fiction in Africa – Nnedi Orkorafor’s ‘Lagoon’ Sarah Lotz’s ‘The Three‘, Louis Greenberg’s ‘Dark Windows’, Nerine Dorman’s ‘The Guardian’s Wyrd’, Dave-Brendon De Burgh’s ‘Betrayal’s Shadow’, Cat Hellisen’s ‘House of Sand and Secrets’ (paperback issue) – and with Lauren Beukes’ ‘Broken Monsters’ out at the end of next month (July), the local genre scene is steaming hot.

For those of you wanting to write, upcoming is an exciting anthology call from Short Story South Africa, due at the end of this month (June 2014), called ‘Terra Incognito’: http://shortstorydayafrica.org/write-2014-2/terra-incognita/ Also noteworthy is the annual Science Fiction and Fantasy South Africa’s Nova short story competition, entries due the end of September: http://www.sfsa.org.za/Nova.html

No excuses now – go read – and write! Nick Wood May/June 2014