Nanpai Sanshu

https://d3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net/staging/2024-9-29/388904448-44100-2-a81017d199d3b.m4a In the third episode of SH@25, editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with author Arkady Martine, whose Strange Horizons debut was in 2014, for an in-depth interview on her multifaceted career, her review writing, and the history that inspired her two-time Hugo Award winning Teixcalaan Empire series.

I You’ve never seen something like this before. No one in your class has. You’re standing on the observation balcony of the timedeck, all twenty-four of you, staring out through six layers of reinforced carbon-mesh plexiglass. No one speaks. No one even picks up a datapad. Somewhere to your left, lost in the long single-file line of seventeen-year-old wannabe valedictorians, someone coughs. The noise feels like sacrilege. It used to be so blue. II You wonder what it would be like to stand on it.

At the beginning of Dakini Atoll, there’s a note from the author explaining that while this book follows the story of their previous work, Club Ded (2020), the narrative does not assume that readers will be familiar with that other story. Having not previously read Club Ded, I found this to be very helpful information to bear in mind, since Singh begins this narrative by introducing dozens of separate characters who initially seem to be deeply enmeshed in an ongoing plot.