Nova Scotia Vol 2 anthology, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, is now available to order! It celebrates the depth and breadth of Scotland's dazzling science fiction and fantasy landscape from its haunted islands to its transformed cities and everything in between. Jenni Coutts created the gorgeous cover art.
You can order the book on its own, or buy the bundle anthology deal - both from the Luna store.
Today we'd like to introduce you to Rhiannon A Grist and the story "Dodos".
About the author:
Rhiannon A Grist is an award-winning writer of Weird, Dark and Speculative fiction. Though originally from Wales, Scotland has been her home for nearly two decades. Her dark fantasy / folk horror The Queen of the High Fields (Luna Press) won Best Novella at the 2023 British Fantasy Awards.
Rhiannon on the story:
I honestly can’t remember where this one came from. Some stories just turn up on the page. I’m not the boss around here; they are. I just make the keyboard work. Like Penitence Price, I often feel like the beleaguered shepherd of a gaggle of unpredictable, dopey birds who rule my life and know it.Ok, a more serious answer. There’s been a lot of climate anxiety lately. A lot of anxiety about the world in general, if we’re honest. I try to deal with that anxiety by imagining our different possible futures, but dialling one element up to eleven. What happens if the world erupts into flames? What happens if the gulf stream breaks down and we get a second ice age? What happens if the tech billionaires and their retinue fuck off to space and leave behind a bewildered populace to deal with all the climate change in their wake?
How do we live? How do we keep going? How do we find hope?
I think "Dodos" is a lot about that hope part. Penitence is carrying the guilt of all the generations that came before her, so much so she’s suffocated by it. Yara suggests that maybe it’s ok to put that guilt down and instead imagine how you’d like your future to be. Sure, they’ve been dealt some shitty cards, but they’re still in the game. They still get to play.
In the same way, I think Speculative Fiction has that dual ability of validating our anxieties while also providing space to imagine how we might make things not-quite-as-bad-as-we-fear-they-could-be. I’m not sure how successful my fiction is at this, but I hope it is. I hope.
As for the dodos, well, I just think they’re neat. Apparently, they coo-ed like pigeons, but lower, like ‘doo-doo’. I’ve been told that’s where the name came from, but I’m not sure how true that is. I guess we’ll just have to bring them back for real to find out.
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