Category: Fiction

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Fiction

The Honey Trap in SF Caledonia

Sepia pen artwork by Becca McCall - a small part of the main image. A short-haired person sitting on a chair holds up an apple. Surrounding them are tables spread put across a hall, all covered in trays of produce and surrounded by various people.

My award-winning story ‘The Honey Trap’ is available to read for free on SF Caledonia – now with snazzy new art by Becca McCall.

The Honey Trap is a story about perspective and fruit growers in a climate crisis future. First published in 2014 in La Femme, a NewCon Press anthology, it won the BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction the following year.

SF Caledonia, an offshoot of Shoreline of Infinity, showcases the best of Scottish SF, including Anne Charnock, Tendai Huchu, Ken MacLeod, Lyndsey Croal and more. So, it’s nice to have my wee story recognised as belonging with tales by such big names. It’s also lovely to see this story get its own art too, with Becca McCall’s interpretation of the Grower’s Fair from the opening scene.

You can read ‘The Honey Trap’ now at the link below.
https://www.sfcaledonia.scot/the-honey-trap-by-ruth-ej-booth/

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Academic Conventions Events Fantasycon Fiction New Column New Story Readings Shoreline of Infinity

Update: Fantasycon 2023

The Fantasycon 2023 logo. The background is a red and green sun pattern, while the foreground is a black sun outline with the words Fantasycon 2023 in it.

Update: Due to a family bereavement, I’m sorry to announce that I will no longer be attending Fantasycon 2023. However, the details in this blog on the Shoreline of Infinity pre-orders and the BFS Journal special issue still stand. Neil Williamson has agreed to take my reading slot on Saturday at 5pm, which’ll be well worth attending instead.

Join me at Fantasycon 2023 for some brand new fiction and hopefully more! For schedule details for Fantasycon, as well as updates on Shoreline of Infinity and the British Fantasy Society Journal special issue on Fantasy & Gaming, read on.

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Academic Fiction Interviews

Science Fiction Film & Television Interview

An abstract image of purple trumpet-like shapes and orange discs whirl on a black background spotted with white circles. White text reads: Science Fiction Film & Television.

If you’d like some insights into my work-in-progress, now’s your chance. This month’s Science Fiction Film & Television journal is a special issue on Science Fiction and Gaming. Editors Darshana Jayemanne and Cameron Kunzelman were kind enough to interview me on ‘Retellings and Reversions’, where we discuss representing gaming in novels and the issues around remakes such as Final Fantasy VII: Remake (on that note, this interview and this blog do contain spoilers).

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Book Launch Book Launch Events Fiction Interviews New Column Shoreline of Infinity

Shoreline of Infinity and Tiffani Angus Interview

The cover of Shoreline of Infinity 19. A masked and goggled man rides a masked and goggled horse

Hell Year 2020 might be doing its best to make this the longest and most miserable decade in history, but before it gasps its last, here’s where you can find me nattering online and in print.

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Academic Fiction

After Fantastika

The cover of After Fantastika, Volume 4 Issue 1 of Fantastika Journal

In recent months, the New Normal has grown from pandemic lockdown catchphrase to a DysUtopian* ideal, embodying restless anxiety and quiet reflection, the ideals of international cooperation and the nadir of nationalistic isolation, and both a future of terrifying uncertainty and an opportunity for change, as we try to conceive of life alongside this disease.

Many times in recent months, as I’ve exchanged cards and small gifts with struggling friends, or cleared my cupboards for charity donations, I’ve been put in mind of Professor Brian Attebery‘s 2019 lecture at University of Glasgow on the future of YA and Adult Utopian fiction, part of a series sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust. Leading off from the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, Professor Attebery spoke of how the most convincing utopias in fiction may not be the ones at the level of full societal change, but those at smaller scales – even those found embodied in the brief moments of kindness shared between two individuals.

So, this strikes me as an opportune moment to draw your attention to my review of Becky Chambers’ Record Of A Spaceborn Few (Hodder & Stoughton, 2018) in the latest issue of Fantastika journal, After Fantastika.

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