HOW TO GET TO APOCALYPSE on the Locus Recommended List, Also New Publications!

Hello again to my neglected blog! It's been about two months since the release of How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters, my collection of 23 dark science fiction stories from the past decade and a half. It's been getting some great reviews and mentions! Silvia Moreno-Garcia lists it as one of her favorite SF/F books of the year in The Washington Post:

Another favorite was How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters, a strong collection by Erica L. Satifka, one of the brightest science fiction writers today who should be getting more attention.

(She also picks out Caroline Hardaker's Composite Creatures as her favorite SF novel of 2021, and after reading it myself I have to strongly agree that it's one of the best SF books I've read in ages. Particularly recommended if you like reading about climate collapse, housecats, or both.)

And on Tor.com, Jared Shurin name-drops it in both his best-of-2021 list and "Our Cyberpunk Year," where he writes:

These are the apocalypses of automation and redundancy; social stratification and malignant ignorance. Satifka has an incredible—unparalleled, even—ability to pack each story filled with technological concepts and imaginative conceits. It is excellent world-building, with every element strange and wondrous, but all perfectly plausible and naturally woven. It is a wave of new ideas, but never once feels like an onslaught, because the stories themselves are character-driven; about deeply empathetic people in these recognisable, if unsettling, worlds. These are stories that are not only immediately relevant, but will stand the test of time. Science fiction—cyberpunk, even—at its finest.

And over on the Locus Magazine site, reviewer Ian Mond also praises the collection, writing:

A common feature of Satifka’s work, which we see portrayed in “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Apocalypse”, is the slow death of society, typically brought about by the rapacious appetite of capitalism (and sometimes alien invaders). [...] For all the despair and dystopia in Satifka’s fiction, there’s an acerbic thread of humour that runs through most of these stories. Several of them are even out-and-out hilarious.

Speaking of Locus, my collection also made the Locus Recommended List (first time I've ever been on it), so if you really liked it, then you can vote for it (reader votes determine the shortlist/winners). And of course, more reviews on any platform are always appreciated!

In non-collection news, I had a non-fiction piece come out in the anthology Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, out from PM Press at the tail end of last year. It's about (who else?) Philip K. Dick, and I take the position that Dick was perhaps not as personally far left as he's made out to be, but that the radicalism inherent in his works still resonates on both a left-wing and just a general human level. This is a gorgeous full-color book featuring essays on New Wave SF authors and the politics that inspired them (and that they inspired).

And in impending publication news, my short story "Twilight of the God-Makers" will be appearing in the Baen anthology Weird World War IV edited by Sean Patrick Hazlett (who also edited Weird World War III, which I am also in). It's an anthology of war stories that take place after the Big One ends, including authors such as Nick Mamatas, Martin L. Shoemaker, Laird Barron, and many others! My story is about what happens to the demented superhumans a united North American state created after they were no longer of use. I hope you check this book out too! Release date March 1, 2022. If you're a person who likes author interviews, I have a three-part interview series with the editor that can be accessed from his channel Through a Glass Darkly.

Oh, and last but certainly not least, we got a new kitten named Jack, who's modeling my contributor copy of Weird World War IV to the left here. But for more about him, you'll have to check Twitter.