This is a brief addendum to mention I've added an update to my section on SF in South Africa, entitled Part 3: South African SF – i.e. Speculative Fiction, not just Science. This extends an article I have had recently published in Vector, the BSFA critical journal.

As regards recent and current reading, I have just finished Ben Okri's wonderful novel The Famished Road and look forward to starting a YA book by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu called Zahrah the Windseeker. I have also received the latest PostScripts magazine with a lively opening editorial by Lucius Shepard, raising amongst other things the importance of political perspectives in writing. Given the fraught political challenges facing the world, 'enlightened' political views in fiction seem vital to help us all live together more peacefully. (I'd define 'enlightened' as any view which agrees with mine! 🙂 )

I hope you find update interesting and please let me know if there are any other South African writers I should be aware of, regarding science/speculative fiction.

Nick Wood – August 2006