Weird Fishes is officially out next week! Thanks everyone for spreading the word to help this story find its readers. I’m TERRIBLE at describing this book without revealing the whole surprise, so I’ll try sharing who I wrote this book FOR:
Readers looking for an entertaining climate fantasy romp will enjoy this story. It’s cute and has a lot of heart. Like whale-sized heart.
And if you’re a reader whose connections to culture have been displaced by colonialism, you’re going to notice other details on the adventure. Might make it a darker story, but no less enjoyable. Cuteness is a lure.
Angry Hawaiians and Pacific Islander cousins, I love you. If you read this book you’ll know how much I do. Esp. eldest daughters of the diaspora. Some blood got in the water with this one.
Anyone working for climate justice who believes our stories need to go deeper and be more radically imaginative to support the cultural change we’ll need to turn the tide. I crafted this story as a tool for the work that has to be done.
Science fiction readers who love first contact/alien minds stories, but could do without the colonial assumptions built into the structure of the genre—try this if you like Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, Carl Sagan, LeGuin. That kind of thing.
An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities. Not sure how wide the genre overlap between “fun sff” and “philosophical speculative literature” is, but if that’s a zone you find appealing, come get cozy.
Marine biologists might get annoyed by the creative irreverence with which I brandish their science—combining attributes and adaptations to create new species as wildly as nature herself. Or you could be the ones most enchanted by my fantastical descriptions of what’s down there
I wrote the book for anyone who loves the ocean so intensely that they’ve had to numb themselves to the pain of perceiving the many multi-threats to the planet’s largest ecosystem. This story is going to lean into the jellyfish sting, but we’re going to do it together.