Story Collection, Two Authors

I just heard from my publisher in India, Zubaan books, that the release of my collection "The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories" has been delayed to the beginning of March. On the plus side, the cover is done and the final corrections are being made by the typesetter. The cover is designed by my very talented editor at Zubaan, Anita Roy, using collages from the artwork of the brilliant Delhi artist Chitra Venkataramani. You can see it at the Zubaan website for the book, http://www.zubaanbooks.com/zubaan_books_details.asp?BookID=117.

Zubaan is descended from India's oldest feminist press, Kali for Women, and is publishing some of the most exciting stuff in English from Indian authors, including translated works from various non-English Indian languages. Their catalog is well worth checking out. One of their upcoming releases that I am really looking forward to is a science fiction novel called Generation 14, by Priya Sarukkai Chabria: http://www.zubaanbooks.com/zubaan_books_details.asp?BookID=116.

I've recently discovered the works of British YA writer Kate Thompson, and am wondering why she does not seem to be well known in the US --- or if she is, how I've managed to be unaware of her for so long. On our way back from India this January my daughter and I were ransacking the Borders in Heathrow airport, desperately looking for something to read for the next flight (having finished reading everything we had) when my daughter found "The Fourth Horseman" by Kate Thompson. After she finished it she had a stunned look on her face and declared that this was one of the best books she had read in a long time. So in the remaining three hours over the Atlantic I read it, and had to agree. It is a really compelling science fiction/fantasy story that engages with such themes as war, fundamentalism and prejudice as seen through the lives of three children. Very relevant to our times, and as the Guardian blurb puts it, it is "unputdownable."

So when we got back we ordered a bunch of her other books from Amazon (our local Barnes and Noble didn't have anything by her), and have just finished reading her Missing Link Trilogy. Bold, compelling science fiction; although some of her ideas about language and genetics seem a bit simplistic, the manner of telling, the shades of grey, and the imaginative sweep of the story are something to celebrate. The first and third books are particularly good.

Here is Kate Thompson's site: http://www.katethompson.info/.

Her works have won the Whitbread Children's Book award and the Guardian Children's Book Prize.