Q&A: London sci-fi author wins Nebula Award for space opera novel

A London sci-fi author just landed a prestigious Nebula Award.

A.D. Sui has been awarded Best Novella at the 60th annual Nebula Awards for her book, The Dragonfly Gambit.

The Dragonfly Gambit is a space opera with themes of romance, betrayal and disability, and the awards are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA).

Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, disabled science fiction writer who also has a forthcoming book called The Iron Garden Sutra. She spoke with CBC's Josiah Sinanan on Afternoon Drive.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Josiah Sinanan: Congratulations on this award. How does it feel to receive the Nebula Award for Best Novella?

A.D. Sui: Thank you so much. It was honestly a shock. Being just nominated for the Nebula was super exciting. And then winning was just never something I considered. Like I wasn't watching the ceremony because I thought, 'Oh, you know, what are the chances?' It was actually my mother who sent me the screenshot of my novella being announced as the winner, and the first thing that I asked her was: 'Is this AI-generated?' Like, this can't be real. It's a huge surprise.

JS: Tell us a little bit about the Dragonfly Gambit.

AS: The Dragonfly Gambit is a novella, so it's a shorter book, under 4,000 words, something you can read in an evening. It's about a military pilot who, after a career-ending injury, comes back to the fleet but now comes back to bring down the entire fleet and the entire empire as well.

JS: What inspired you to write that book? Like, where did that idea come from?

AS: I've been fascinated by science fiction ever since I was a kid. I like to tell people that back when my family lived in Ukraine, my kind of sleeping area was separated by bookshelves, and we had all of these classic sci-fi authors on the bookshelves. I would read the last names as I would fall asleep, and that was my kind of bedtime routine. So I really grew up on science fiction, and I've always wanted to write it, but the stars just never kind of aligned until I was in my 30s

and this was what came out. Very classic sci-fi, space-opera-inspired but updated to be more inclusive and more feminist. It's just reflective of the current, current climate.

LISTEN: London author awarded the prestigious Nebula Award

JS: You were born in Ukraine, as you mentioned there. How did you end up in London?

AS: My family came to Canada quite a while ago and I spent most of my life in Toronto. I actually ended up in London for graduate school, got my master's, got my PhD, went out to the West Coast for my post-doctorate program, and then came back to London because it just really feels like the perfect size city and has a lot of heritage neighbourhoods. I just love century homes, so that kind of pulled me back to London.

JS: One review of your novella that I want to read to you from Kate, Kate Elliott, another author. She says this book "hits like a punch to the face and unrelentingly explores loving what you most hate, even when you need to destroy it." I thought that was really compelling. Do you agree with that review?

AS: I think Kate really nails it. It is very punchy, and there's a lot of high emotions throughout the entire novella. We don't want to spoil anything in case folks are going to go and read it, but our protagonist does have a lot of these conflicted emotions about kind of the institution that she was part of, but also about the people that she met, that she considered her friends and now she has a different relationships relationship with.

JS: As an author of the sci-fi genre, do you feel this is a form of escapism? What's going through your head as you're creating these worlds? What do you enjoy about it?

AS: I think it is a type of escapism, but not necessarily a type of comfortable escapism. I like to compare it to visualization and sports. It's kind of like mental practice. You put yourself in the shoes of a character who is going through some really, really bad things, and then you kind of watch them go through it, and you watch them come out on top or not. It reminds you that maybe, as the little guy, you, too, can face some pretty bad things and fight against them.

I like becoming somebody else. And I like writing from this very different, this very perspective.

JS: Now you have written another book since the release of Dragonfly Gambit. The Iron Garden Sutra comes out next year. Tell us about that.

AS: Yes, I am so excited for the Iron Garden Sutra. That is going to be a full-length novel, so it's going to be pretty thick.

That book is about a monk and a group of scientists who all go to this long-lost generation ship. So, it is a ship that's been floating through space for thousands of years. They go aboard to explore it, and they end up fighting something that they had not been expecting.

JS: I love it. That's a great little teaser. Well, Anna, I'm curious: you won this Nebula Award. You have your first full-length book coming out. What's next in your writing career?

AS: The cool thing about writing is that every day is very exciting because I get to sit down and write and that is by far my favourite part of the job. My second favourite part is because of writing; I got to connect with so many other writers who are Canadian and American, who are from the global south, and from all over the world. I hope just more of the same.