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Today’s podcast guest is Octavia Cade, a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication and a particular interest in science history and marine studies. She’s also passionate about promoting other excellent authors. Late in this podcast she lists many quality works.
Octavia has been researching the reproductive strategies of Zostera muelleri seagrass, and when she’s not thinking about science, she’s thinking about horror and other forms of speculative fiction. She also does a lot of tramping, and most of the time she manages not to injure herself. Her dream is to one day complete Te Araroa, a walking trail that goes the entire length of NZ. She’s done bits and pieces of it, and it’ll probably take her another ten years, but one day – one day dammit! – she will finish the thing.
Octavia was the 2020 writer in residence at Massey University/Square Edge.
You can find Octavia Cade on Twitter and her website.
Octavia’s publisher, Paper Road Press, has a website and is on twitter.
Stone Weta
A strong theme in Octavia Cade’s novella is scientists fighting to keep data, like the real-world event of transferring US records to Canada before Trump could have the data destroyed. This started an interesting discussion.
Other NZ authors – a twitter thread
Octavia came to my attention during her passionate posting of the below thread. She was disappointed that WorldCon, the worldwide speculative fiction convention, used Maori symbolism and was in New Zealand but barely mentioned Indigenous and local authors. To fill this oversight, she lists many excellent authors and works in the below thread.
As one of the living NZ authors, this was undeniably disappointing. However, it gives me an excuse to talk about all the living NZ SFF authors you do not know. https://t.co/4Fr9W6Syhg
— Dr. Octavia Cade (@OJCade) August 2, 2020
Some authors Octavia Cade recommends:
Steph Matuku, “Flight of the Fantail”
Tina Makareti, “Once Upon A Time in Aotearoa”
Sascha Stronach, “The Dawnhounds”
Elizabeth Knox, “The Absolute Book”
Andi C. Buchanan, “From A Shadow Grave”
A.J. Fitzwater, “The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper”
And “Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy” from Paper Road Press, edited by Marie Hodgkinson, two volumes so far (2019 and 2020).
Also, for your future reference/reviewing, J.C. Hart (Cassie Hart) has “Butcherbird” coming next year from Huia Press, and Gina Cole is working on a scifi novel about Fijian women in space. Cole is a Fijian New Zealander, and Cassie, Steph, Tina, and Sascha are Maori authors.
Still listening?
If you loved this podcast, you might be interested in “It’s all about love, actually” – Meg Mundell, Rohan Wilson and Tabitha Bird, where they discuss their novels set in the future. These books include climate change, a pandemic and more. There are many more podcasts here. Thank you for listening and have a great day.
