specfic

Coming soon…

Calling Indian SF and Fantasy writers

I’m putting together Indian/diaspora short stories, SF and Fantasy, for an anthology. 3000-6000 words. Deadline 12th November. Payment in royalties in exciting foreign currencies if your story makes it through. Previously published work is fine. Multiple submissions also fine. Email me your stories with a brief bio. Also, if you’re a member of a writergroup, … Continue reading →

Falling Forest Trees.

Cover story on Indian fantasy in The Week. National newsmagazine, people. Walls, writing on . See, now we actually exist.

Seven launch

at Oxford Bookstore, CP, 19th, 630 pm. Come, and bring everyone. I’ll be there, as will Hurree Babu and Anoushka Ravishankar, both of whom are very nice and much more interesting than me. And we will all read and talk and stuff.

Scholastic SF Anthology

Do pick up this new SF anthology from Scholastic India; It’s called 7 Science Fiction stories, which should give you a fairly big clue as to what’s in it. I am, for one, with a story called Intergalactic Idol, and among the other writers in there, I’ve previously read (and admired) Nilanjana S. Roy, Anushka … Continue reading →

Virgin November solicits

This is why I havent been blogging.Im writing Devi from #3 onwards; Devi 1 comes out September in India, my stuff from November, monthly (July, September onwards respectively abroad) and EoS from November abroad, hopefully from November in India too. Update: Amend that to ‘I really don’t know when anything’s out, I hope it’s all … Continue reading →

The Trousers of Time: Possible futures of Indian speculative fiction in English

The origins of speculative fiction in India are twofold; first, the incredible wealth of mythical, historical and folklore traditions, and second, the incredibly popular genres of science fiction and fantasy in both literature and film in the West. Thousands of years ago, flying saucers, death-rays, hideous alien monsters and incredible machines were captured by Indian … Continue reading →

IWE and genre

“Civilisational or religious partitioning of the world populationyields a ‘solitarist’ approach to human identity, which sees humanbeings as members of exactly one group…This can be a good way ofmisunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, wesee ourselves as members of a variety of groups – we belong to all ofthem… Each of … Continue reading →

The Indian superhero

“You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the longseries of complex influences which has produced the race in which heappears, and the social state into which that race has slowlygrown….Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.”– Herbert Spencer Superhumans – Nietzschean uberbeings who bend circumstances, storiesand … Continue reading →

The South Asian diaspora and speculative fiction

The Great Indian Diaspora has always been a key topic of discussion whenever the theme of Indian writing in English has come up. Many of the world’s most successful writers of Indian origin live outside the subcontinent yet set their books there, and many critics feel this harms the authenticity of their work. A lot … Continue reading →