Thursday, March 25, 2021

Escape to (the Future) LA, a guest post by Denise Hamilton

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've made no secret over the years of my love for science fiction, so I was thrilled to hear my good friend (and award-winning author and journalist) Denise Hamilton was helming a speculative fiction anthology. Denise is a born-and-bred Angelena, and the City of Angels has featured heavily in almost all her fiction. So it's no surprise that when Akashic Books went looking for an editor to put together a story collection that truly represented the cultural breadth and diversity of Los Angeles, they asked Denise. How did it work out? Amazingly, of course. Strap into your flying car, because this isn't your mother's future...

 

 


In this pandemic year when the veil of reality has never seemed so thin, I’ve fantasized heavily about alternate timelines. Bring me a world where Covid was contained like SARS or Ebola, the world went blithely on, and only the time travelers realized the magnitude of the bullet we’d dodged.


While in lockdown I’ve also been reading a lot of speculative fiction - space opera, fantasy, shapeshifters, future dystopia, modern fairy tales - anything that catapults me into a surreal world different from the surreal reality we share today.


In this, I’m probably not alone. A lot of mystery folk write and read fantasy and sci-fi, and if you’re one of them, I’m curious to know your faves. Personally, I’ve been blown away recently by a lot of the new BIPOC and LGBQT speculative fiction. Novels like Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, American War by Omar El Akkad and N.K. Jemison’s Shattered Earth trilogy offer fresh, brilliant perspectives that enrich and renew the genre.

 


I’ve also thought deeply about speculative fiction because I’ve just edited a new anthology for Akashic Books called Speculative Los Angeles. It follows the same blueprint as the popular City Noir series, which now includes Delhi Noir, Baltimore Noir, Tokyo Noir, Paris Noir and hundreds more. (n.b. I edited the two volumes of Los Angeles Noir).


In a city that’s already half-mythical, where the fantasies spun by Hollywood outshine reality, my challenge as editor was to capture LA’s un-reality in a way that felt fresh and revelatory. That meant reaching out to authors who reflected the multicultural vitality of the city and conjured up an L.A. we haven’t seen before in Blade Runner and Terminator 2 and that final scene in Day of the Locust. I’m sure I’m missing a ton of cultural touchstones about apocalyptic LA, so drop me a line with your favorite. 


Traditionally, Southern California sci-fi and fantasy heavyweights like Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Philip K. Dick reflected the white male domination of the genre. But in the late 1970s, L.A. African-American writer Octavia Butler began to crack that pantheon, and her time travel book Kindred (1979) and dystopian LA novel Parable of the Sower (1993) are finding new readers each day, which makes me so happy. I only wish that Butler, who died in 2006, could have seen all her new fans.

 


Speculative Los Angeles is dedicated to Butler’s memory. The anthology includes exciting new voices like S. Qiouyi Lu, whose story unfolds in a suburban landfill where giant mecha robots piloted by humans battle to the death and the Chinese Exclusion Act has brought renewed racism. It features Ben H. Winters, whose award-winning crime novels are all set in a speculative but utterly recognizable United States. Noir writer Duane Swierczyinski imagines a destroyed Hollywood where psychic death cults gather in crumbling theaters to wreak destruction. National Book Award winner Charles Yu embraces black holes in suburbia, and Alex Espinoza writes a 21st century changeling tale of an immigrant  toddler who returns from ICE detention to a mother who insists her son has been replaced by a replicant. Mothers know those things, don’t they?

 


When I’m not writing or editing for work, I’ve discovered new voices like Aliette de Bodard and Courttia Newland and revisited old favorites like Frank Herbert, Paolo Bacigalupi, Francesca Lia Block, China Mieville, and even J. R.R. Tolkein.  I’ve also rewatched some Outer Limits and Twilight Zone episodes. (factoid: Harlan Ellison wrote several Outer Limits episodes, including one set inside LA’s famous Bradbury Building downtown). If you’re crossing genres, what new authors have you discovered? And which U.S. city filled with ghosts, demons, urban myths and haunted landscapes should be up next for Akashic’s Speculative City series?


Leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for a signed copy of Speculative Los Angeles!

 

Denise Hamilton is the author of seven crime novels, including the Eve Diamond series, The Last Embrace and Damage Control. A former L.A. Times reporter, she is also a Fulbright scholar and edited Los Angeles Noir and Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics. Her latest project, Speculative Los Angeles, is available at all bookstores and can be ordered direct from the publisher here. You can friend Denise on Facebook and follow her on Twitter as @DeniseHamilton_.

60 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Denise . . . this sounds like an amazing book! A future Los Angeles sounds perfectly fascinating . . . . I’ve always been a fan of science fiction, so this is definitely my kind of book!

    As for a city filled with ghosts, demons, urban myths, and haunted landscapes, perhaps Gettysburg or maybe Savannah????

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    1. It's not speculative fiction, Joan, but the modern classic MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, set in Savannah, is a wonderfully gothic true crime tale that reads like a ghost story.

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    2. Oh my goodness, Edith, Speculative Los Angeles includes a short story set in La Puente! On a landfill. In a future dystopia. But it's also a love story! I hope you enjoy the collection. I love the San Gabriel Valley. I was an LA Times reporter there years ago and it was a never-ending fount of interesting stories.

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    3. Edit re above: So sorry, Joan, not enough coffee yet this morning on the West Coast. I posted this in the wrong place! I hope you find interesting stories in Speculative Los Angeles. Your suggestions for ghost-haunted places are excellent. My son and I visited Savannah a few years back when he was looking at colleges because they have a great art school there: SCAD. I kind of wished he would have chosen it because then I could have visited and explored more. But we had two days to stroll around. So beautiful and evocative!

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    4. Julia, I loved Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but I also remember reading how it was the perfect set-up for something supernatural to happen, which didn't really happen. Someone needs to take that premise and write the supernatural version.

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    5. I thought the same thing! I wanted it to be a ghost story.

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    6. That's definitely going on my must-read list, Julia . . . .

      Oh, my goodness, Denise . . . as one who used to live in La Puente, I'm definitely interested in reading that story!

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  2. DENISE: Congratulations on your newest anthology! Speculative LA sounds like a great collection of stories.

    I have read several of the Akashic City Noir anthologies, including one of the LA Noir anthologies that you edited.

    As for the location of the next US City Noir book, I would pick New Orleans.
    But I know that Akashic has gone global with this series, and I am surprised they do not have a book set in Scotland, so I would pick Edinburgh Noir.

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    1. EDIT ABOVE: I know Akashic has already published a New Orleans Noir, but there would be plenty of new stories for a Vol 2. NOLA City Noir book.

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    2. Grace, I can't believe they haven't set an anthology in Scotland yet. Yes, definitely Edinburgh Noir, and then Glasgow Noir - such very different settings!

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    3. Scotland is a good place to set some noir or supernatural stories as well! Macbeth! All those wild craggy mountains. And of course, the Outlander series. We can't get enough of it!

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    4. Thank you, Grace! Glad to see another Akashic fan here, and I hope you find something that thrills you in Speculative Los Angeles. I agree that Edinburgh Noir would be a great new entry into the Noir series, or even the Speculative City series. So many ghosts and so much history.

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  3. I haven't read science fiction in a long time but I used to enjoy it, especially female authors like LeGuin, when I could find them.

    I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, so I'm a Los Angeles-adjacent native. I know I'll enjoy this anthology!

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    1. Edith, if you like Ursula LeGuin, you'll definitely like N.K. Jemison, who Denise mentions above. Her novels are very female-centered and she writes fantasy that's VERY different from traditional elves-and-wizards fantasy.

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    2. Oh my goodness, Edith, Speculative Los Angeles includes a short story set in La Puente! On a landfill. In a future dystopia. But it's also a love story! I hope you enjoy the collection. I love the San Gabriel Valley. I was an LA Times reporter there years ago and it was a never-ending fount of interesting stories.

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  4. This is a whole new genre for me and I'm excited to have a whole long list of names to explore from your post Denise. Thank you! I only just learned of NK Jemison the other day via a BBC podcast with her, so I have loads of catching up to do.

    For the heck of it, I'll suggest Toronto as a city for the City Noir series; it is Canada's most diverse city, which would add to the richness of the stories within the anthology.

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    1. AMANDA: Akashic has already done Toronto, as well as Montreal and Vancouver in the City Noir series.

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    2. Amanda, my go-to suggestion for people dipping their toes into science fiction is John Scalzi. He writes very accessible SF in the "space opera" tradition - lots of characters in space ships and alien plants, action, and often grand, sweeping events. Plus, he's funny. Really funny. You might want to start with his LOCKED IN series, which are sf mysteries, or his novel AGENT TO THE STARS, which is both laugh-out-loud and deeply moving.

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    3. Yes, Akashic has very wide reach for that Noir series. Full list here: http://www.akashicbooks.com/subject/noir-series/

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    4. Amanda, there is so much to pick and choose from in speculative fiction. William Gibson, who helped create the cyberpunk genre with Neuromancer years ago, is still writing excellent "15 minutes into the future" fiction. His latest: Agency, which involves alternate timelines.

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    5. Thank you, Grace, Julia and denise for the info and recommendations!

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  5. Denise, I'm game for any genre if the story appeals to me--so thanks for all the new authors to explore. I have two cities to suggest for the Noir series: Natchez, Mississippi, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

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    1. Hello Flora! I hope you find a story that appeals to you in Speculative Los Angeles. The stories range from time travel to alternate history, ghosts, 21st century myth, sci-fi, urban fantasy and robot nursemaids. And more! I know there is already a Columbus Noir. In fact, I believe it just came out. And brilliant MS author Tom Franklin has edited Mississippi Noir. Perhaps there is a Natchez story in that collection.

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    2. Flora, if you haven't read it yet, Michael Chabon's THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION is a great place for a mystery lover to be introduced to speculative fiction. Set in an alternate 1960s where the Jewish diaspora is to Alaska, instead of Israel, and it follows a down-on-his luck cop in Sitka investigating the murder of the son of a local crime boss. Saying more would spoil it, but I recommend it highly.

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    3. Julia and Denise--thanks for the suggestions! I'm always looking for something new.

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  6. Welcome to JRW Denise, and congratulations on your anthology of LA. I have spent lots of vacations and happy times in LA-LA land with cousins and pals and can still conger up the smell of blossoms when you emerge from baggage claim at LAX. It's the second clue that you are not in Connecticut anymore. The first is when the ocean turns up on the wrong side of the land.

    I used to read Sci Fi a lot and was a huge fan of lots of sci fi sagas, both books, TV and films. But creepy is not something that I particularly enjoy and during the pandemic I have mostly stuck to the happy ending stuff. I did listen to the entire LORR on Audible over the last year and really loved visiting Middle Earth again. It will be fun to try some of the authors you've mentioned who will be completely new to me. Your anthologies sound like the perfect way to meet a few.

    A new to me author during this pandemic is G. S. Norwood, our own Gigi. Her two short novels, Deep Ellum Pawn and Deep Ellum Blues set in Dallas, are great reads and totally tickled my need for urban fantasy. Her stories give the same feeling of satisfaction as reading Kevin Hearne. I adore both stories and wait until you meet Eddy Weekes.

    As for US cities that deserve a closer look for a sci fi anthology, I'd vote for somewhere cold, in Maine or even in Alaska.

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    1. I second what Judy said! I love Gigi's Deep Ellum stories so much!

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    2. Yeah! Maine! Where's our Freeport Noir (all stories about people meeting terrible ends while shopping in factory outlets...)

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    3. Judy, thanks for the tip about G.S. Norwood and Kevin Hearne! Those are new to me, as is most of Texas. Re LOTR, I have to re-read those each year. They take me to a happy place. I read them to my kids a lot too when they were young so now we are all fans. As for somewhere cold like Maine or Alaska, those would be great and my mind goes immediately to Game of Thrones and the glacier-eyed Night King. So spooky. Winter is coming!

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    4. In Maine, it would be Night Stephen King.

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    5. Judy and Debs, you are so sweet to mention Ms. Eddy! I'm so glad you dipped into my Deep Ellum stories and enjoyed them. I am neck deep in some really disgusting grant writing just now and, as a bribe to myself, I've carved out some time over the weekend to get started on DE3--working title "Death in Deep Ellum." Wish me luck!

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  7. Congratulations!
    I remember the craziness of LA: Christmas tinsel on the palm trees lining Wilshire Blvd, catering trucks for filming around town, particularly Saint Monica's Church and the UCLA campus, Jane and Tom running Santa Monica, random "famous people" in the grocery store. Surf board racks on the city buses and flocks of feral parrots. The aura of unreality, of living on a movie set.

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    1. Well said! Margaret, I think an entire speculative story could be conjured up around those feral escaped parrots. In this new collection there are stories in which the beach and the canyons have been sealed off for the wealthy, and Hollywood is a ghost town. One author even took our beloved jacaranda trees (which scatter their purple blossoms on the sidewalks each spring) and made a mythic story out of that idea).

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  8. I haven't read a lot of sci-fi lately, although I did binge-watch "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime and thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Pittsburgh has a lot of ghost stories, believe it or not. And we were the scene of the first trial where a man used the insanity defense in a murder trial.

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    1. Liz, I'm finally working my way through "The Expanse" and loving it. I read the entire series by SA Corey (the pen name for the two writers who also did the series,) and I can highly recommend their books to you. You know what happened, but there's just so much MORE in the novels - which came before the TV show, not the other way around.

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    2. Ah, thank you, Liz! I need a new series to watch. And thank you Julia for recommending the series! One TV series that I enjoyed but haven't yet read the book from was Lovecraft Country. The plot sometimes strained credulity, but I loved the characters and the premise.

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    3. I saw there is a whole string of novels. I guess the show is ending after next season (6) so they don't have to deal with the time jump.

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    4. Not going to lie, Liz, it was jarring to open the last book and discover it was suddenly twenty years later!

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  9. Science Fiction has been a favorite of mine for many years. My father introduced me to his love of science fiction long ago and his favorite authors. Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and so many others. A city which would suit this is Savannah.

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    1. Hello Traveler! Those were two faves of mine years ago as well. Have you noticed how almost all the classic sci fi writers were men? Leigh Brackett wrote some early on, but not many others. Hmmm. Ursula LeGuin and then Margaret Atwood came later. If you like Asimov, I would recommend the Shattered Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin. Mind blowing. Also, the Three Body Problem by Cixin Lu.

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  10. Congratulations! This anthology sounds wonderful. What a treasure. Reading science fiction has always been a special enjoyment for me and growing up we had a collection of books which I loved. Where are they now?

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    1. I feel the same way, Petite! My dad belonged to the Science Fiction Book Club back in the 50s and 60s, and I think I read through every one of those hardcovers when I was a teen. They weren't there when my sister and I cleared dad's house out, so I can only guess they went to Goodwill at some point. I hope some other kid is enjoying them now.

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    2. Petite, I feel the same way as you and Julia. Plus, some of the cover art on those books was so very evocative! I attend a local Paperback Book Show each year in Los Angeles (both as a fan and as an author to sign books) and some of those little paperbacks from the 50s/60s are carefully sheathed in plastic and worth money if they are in good shape.

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  11. Congratulations on your anthology, Denise. My curiosity is touched by a future Los Angles, and Duane's story sounds especially intriguing. I am not a huge fan of sci-fi, but I do love the time travel stories. Connie Willis' Doomsday Book (and all her time traveling historian books) is a special book to me in my reading history. And, as you mentioned, the time travelers recognize the dire importance of diseases, which happens to be the plague or Black Death in Doomsday Book.

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    1. I need to read Doomsday Book. Thx for the rec, Kathy! If you like time travel books, you will especially enjoy the first story in Speculative Los Angeles, which is set in an alternate LA where California stayed agricultural and never joined the U.S. The story takes place on Rancho Los Feliz (today's Griffith Park) on a sprawling property run by an Indigenous woman and a Latina. It's Edenic, until suddently, it isn't!

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    2. Also, Kathy, Duane's story is marvellous. Super inventive. He is someone who writes across genre and does scripts as well as novels and short stories. A very talented writer and a lovely man!

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  12. Sounds good, Denise! I read a lot of sci fi when I was a kid. I'm more into historical fiction now but still pick up a good sci fi from time to time. My favorite right now is an alternate history dystopian series Charlaine Harris writes: Gunnie Rose. The third one published recently. Picture the U.S. gone, splintered into new countries including Dixie, Texoma, New America, Britannia, and the HRE, the Holy Russian Empire. Tsar Nicholas and his family escaped Russia, floated around in ships for years when no one would take them in, and eventually became the guests of William Randolph Hearst. Did I mention there is magic? And our hero, Gunnie Rose, is a Texas girl? What could be better!

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    1. Oh my, Pat D., this sounds right up my alley. I had no idea Charlaine has ventured into speculative and alt history but her work has always contained the supernatural so it makes sense. Oddly enough, I am writing some journalism again for AltaOnline magazine, which publishes superb fiction, essays and long-form feature stories. And it is owned by William Hearst, the great-grandson of William Randolph Hearst. History lives and time sometimes feels circular. I feel echoes of the past a lot in Los Angeles, and it tickles me to be writing for the 4th generation of Hearsts.

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    2. "Unknown" here is Denise, in case you couldn't tell! Sometimes it take a bit to get used to navigating around Blogger...

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  13. Hi Denise! So lovely to see you here! Speculative LA sounds like a blast. I grew up reading as much sci-fi as mystery, but lately I've been mainly rereading (or listening to--the audios are fabulous) a lot of Ben Aaronovitch. I'll be happy to explore some of the authors you've mentioned.
    As for a new city Noir, I'd certainly recommend Dallas!

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    1. Why hello there Deborah! Likewise, such a pleasure to 'see' you! Ben A. is a new writer for me. I will check him out. Yeah, there was a time when I cycled out of science fiction and fantasy because I felt it was part of my childhood and I had to move on to more 'serious' topics, but I came roaring back to it within a few years. I think there is a real renaissance happening in the genre right now. People say that all sci fi is a commentary on current events, just transposed to another time, place, or universe. I do think we work out our questions and concerns in fiction, so that makes sense to me. I think that Texas, with the recent power outages and ice storms, have created a 'perfect storm' for new literature.

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    2. Debs, if you like Ben Aaronivitch's Rivers of London series, you might enjoy V.E. Schwab's Shades of Magic books, set in four alternate Londons during the Regency. Each London is unaware of the others, except for a few gifted individuals who can slip between realities. Plots, action and adventure ensues.

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    3. Ah, Julia, these sound great. See, that's what I want, to slip into another timeline!!! I will also add A River Called Time by Courttia Newland, a British author who is being published in the U.S. by Akashic. It is set in 3 different speculative London timelines. One is very close to our own.

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    4. Love the Rivers of London! I'm making note of Shades of Magic right now.

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    5. Thanks, Julia, those sound great!

      Pat, if you're a Rivers of London fan, the audio books narrated by Kobna Holbrook-Smith are wonderful. He is the perfect Peter Grant.

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    6. I second both of Debs' recommendations. Dallas makes a great spec fiction setting, and Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series is a delight.

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  14. I'm reading Mexican Gothic right now and loving it! Like Julia, I adore sci-fic/fantasy and Los Angeles as a setting is the chef's kiss. Can't wait to read the anthology, Denise.

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    1. Hi Jenn, yeah, Mexican Gothic scratched an itch I didn't know I had for 1950s Latin American gothic haunted house fiction. So happy she has several more books out this year. I hope you enjoy Speculative Los Angeles. Such a wide variety of styles, and each story is set in a different geographical neighborhood, just like with the City Noir series.

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  15. I have shelves full of Akashic noir anthologies as I teach writing noir. I love science fiction and cut my teeth on the Foundation Trilogy. My favorite spec. fic. novel from the early years was Left Hand of Darkness, then onto the Handmaid's Tale. I'm so excited Akashic is publishing Speculative LA. You did a fabulous job on the noir anthologies. One of the women in my critique group Chris Scofield was published by Akashic. I loved Mexican Gothic, too, as an audiobook. What DID happen to Edinburgh?? One of my favorite movies that I call sci-fi noir is EX MACHINA. So excited for the anthology. I never win anything so I'll order a copy. :)

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  16. Thank you so much for the chance to win this book.

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