Shapers of Worlds: Science fiction & fantasy by authors featured on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers
About this ebook
A teenage girl finds something strange in the middle of the Canadian prairie. An exobiologist tries to liberate a giant alien enslaved on its homeworld by humans. The music of the spheres becomes literal for an Earth ship far from home. A superhero league interviews for new members. Strangers share a drink on a world where giant starships fall. Two boys, one a werewolf, one a mage, get more than they bargained for when they volunteer to fight an evil Empire. A man with amnesia accepts a most unusual offer. A young woman finds unexpected allies as she tries to win a flying-machine race in steampunk London . . .
Ranging from boisterous to bleak, from humorous to harrowing, from action-filled to quiet and meditative; taking place in alternate pasts, the present day, the far, far future, and times that never were; set on Earth, in the distant reaches of space, in fantasy worlds, and in metaphysical realms, each of these stories is as unique as its creator. And yet, they all showcase one thing: the irrepressible need of human beings to create, to imagine, to tell stories.
To shape worlds.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
EDWARD WILLETT is the award-winning author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction for readers of all ages. His most recent titles include the Worldshapers series for DAW Books and the five-book young-adult fantasy series The Shards of Excalibur, just re-released by Shadowpaw Press. Ed won Canada’s Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English in 2009 for Marseguro (DAW Books) and the Aurora Award for Best Fan Related Work in 2019 for his podcast The Worldshapers; he’s been shortlisted for Auroras multiple times. He’s currently working on The Tangled Stars, a new space opera for DAW. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. Find him on Twitter @ewillett, on Facebook @edward.willett, and at edwardwillett.com.
TANYA HUFF lives in rural Ontario with her wife, Fiona Patton, six cats, two dogs, and an increasing number of fish. Her thirty-two novels and seventy-nine short stories include horror, heroic fantasy, urban fantasy, comedy, and military SF. Her Blood series was turned into the twenty-two-episode Blood Ties, and writing episode nine allowed her to finally use her degree in Radio & Television Arts. Many of her short stories are available as eCollections. She’s on twitter at @TanyaHuff and Facebook as Tanya Huff. Since she hasn’t done anything about it, she probably still has a LiveJournal account . . .
JOHN SCALZI lives in Ohio and metabolizes through the use of oxygen and some other compounds and components.
JOHN C. WRIGHT is a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, who was only once on the lam and forced to hide from the police. He is the author of some twenty-two novels, including the critically acclaimed The Golden Age and Count to a Trillion. He has published anthologies, including Awake in the Night Land and City Beyond Time, as well as nonfiction. His novel Somewhither won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2016. He holds the record for the most Hugo Award nominations for a single year. He presently works as a writer in Virginia, where he lives in fairytale-like happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their four children.
L.E. MODESITT, JR. is the author of more than seventy-five science fiction and fantasy novels, nearly fifty short stories, and technical and economic articles. His novels include four fantasy series, including the Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio. His first story was published in Analog in 1973. His most recent book is Quantum Shadows, and his next book is Fairhaven Rising (Tor, February 2021). He has been a U.S. Navy pilot; a market research analyst; a real estate agent; director of political research; legislative and staff director for U.S. Congressmen; Director of Legislation/Congressional Relations for the U.S. EPA; and a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues.
Since 1997, award-winning Canadian author/former biologist JULIE E. CZERNEDA has shared her curiosity about living things through her SF and fantasy novels, published by DAW Books. Her latest fantasy is the standalone The Gossamer Mage (2019). Currently, Julie’s returned to her beloved character, Esen, in her Web Shifter’s Library series, featuring all the weird biology one could ask, with Mirage out August 2020 and Spectrum, spring 2021. Julie’s edited/co-edited award-winning anthologies of SF/F, including SFWA’s 2017 Nebula Award Showcase and The Clan Chronicles: Tales from Plexis, featuring stories by fans of her series. Her website is www.czerneda.com.
SHELLEY ADINA is the author of forty-two novels published by Harlequin, Warner, Hachette, and Moonshell Books, Inc., her own independent press. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, and is currently at work on a PhD in Creative Writing with Lancaster University in the UK. She won RWA’s RITA Award® in 2005 and was a finalist in 2006. She appeared in the 2016 documentary film Love Between the Covers, is a popular speaker and convention panelist, and has been a guest on many podcasts, including The Worldshapers and Realm of Books. When she’s not writing, Shelley is usually quilting, sewing historical costumes, or enjoying the garden with her flock of rescued chickens. Find her on the Web at shelleyadina.com, on Twitter @shelleyadina, and on Facebook @magnificentdevices.
After leaving molecular biology, DEREK KÜNSKEN worked with street kids in Central America before finding himself in the Canadian foreign service. He now writes science fiction in Gatineau, Québec. His space opera novels The Quantum Magician and The Quantum Garden were published by Solaris Books. The first was a finalist for the Aurora, the Locus, and the Chinese Nebula Awards. Solaris released his “Godfather in the clouds of Venus” novel The House of Styx in ebook and audio in August 2020 with the hardcover coming in April 2021. Find him at DerekKunsken.com.
THORAIYA DYER is an Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning Sydney-based writer and veterinarian. Her short science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Analog, Apex, Cosmos, Nature, the anthology Bridging Infinity, and boutique collection Asymmetry. Thoraiya’s novels Crossroads of Canopy, Echoes of Understorey, and Tides of the Titans are published by Tor books. Find her online at thoraiyadyer.com or on Twitter @ThoraiyaDyer.
GARETH L. POWELL is the author of the BSFA Award-winning novels Embers of War and Ack-Ack Macaque. He can be found online at www.garethlpowell.com.
SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the October Daye urban fantasies, the InCryptid urban fantasies, and several other works, both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. She also writes under the pseudonym “Mira Grant.” Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot. Her novella “Every Heart A Doorway” received the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novella, and the 2017 Locus Award for Best Novella. Seanan lives in an “idiosyncratically designed” labyrinth in the Pacific Northwest, which she shares with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and, she says, sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard.
FONDA LEE is the author of the epic urban fantasy Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City and continuing in Jade War and Jade Legacy, and the science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo, and Cross Fire. Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, a three-time winner of the Aurora Award, and a multiple finalist for the Nebula Award and the Locus Award. Her novels have garnered multiple starred reviews, been included on numerous state reading lists, and appeared on Best of Year lists from NPR, Barnes & Noble, Syfy Wire, and others. Fonda is a former corporate strategist, black-belt martial artist, and Eggs Benedict enthusiast. Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, she currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series, as well as the Assistant Editor at Baen Books, where he has co-edited four anthologies. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where he studied English Rhetoric and the Classics. Christopher has been writing since he was eight and sold his first novel, Empire of Silence, at twenty-two. To date, his books have been published in five languages. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Jenna. He may be found on both Facebook and Twitter with the handle TheRuocchio.
DAVID BRIN is best-known for shining light—plausibly and entertainingly—on technology, society, and countless challenges confronting our rambunctious civilization. His bestselling novels include The Postman (filmed in 1997) plus explorations of our near future in Earth and Existence. Other novels are translated into more than twenty-five languages. His short stories explore vividly speculative ideas. Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award for exploring twenty-first-century concerns about security, secrecy, accountability, and privacy. As a scientist, tech-consultant and world-known author, he speaks, advises, and writes widely on topics from national defense and homeland security to astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction, creativity, and philanthropy.
D. J. (DAVE) BUTLER has been a lawyer, a consultant, an editor, and a corporate trainer. His novels published by Baen Books include Witchy Eye, Witchy Winter, Witchy Kingdom, Serpent Daughter, and In the Palace of Shadow and Joy, as well as The Cunning Man, co-written with Aaron Michael Ritchey. He also writes for children: The Kidnap Plot, The Giant's Seat, and The Library Machine are published by Knopf. Other novels include City of the Saints from WordFire Press and The Wilding Probate from Immortal Works. Dave also organizes writing retreats and anarcho-libertarian writers' events, and travels the country to sell books. He plays guitar and banjo whenever he can and likes to hang out in Utah with his novel-writing wife and their three children.
DR. CHARLES E. GANNON‘s Caine Riordan hard-SF novels have all been national bestsellers. Four have been Nebula finalists, two have been Dragon Award finalists, and the first was also a Compton Crook winner. An overlapping series, Murphy's Lawless, launched in 2020. His epic fantasy series, The Vortex of Worlds, debuts in 2021. He collaborates with Eric Flint in the New York Times/Wall Street Journal-bestselling Ring of Fire series, has written solo novels in John Ringo's Black Tide Rising series, and has contributed to the Starfire, Honorverse, Man-Kzin, and War World universes. Other credits include a lot of short fiction, game design/writing, and scriptwriter/producer. As a Distinguished Professor of English, Gannon received five Fulbrights. His book Rumors of War & Infernal Machines won the 2006 ALA Choice Award for Outstanding Book. He is a frequent subject-matter expert in national media venues (NPR, Discovery, etc.) and for various intelligence and defense agencies.
DAVID WEBER was born in Cleveland a long, long time ago, and grew up in rural South Carolina, with a father who collected autographed copies of every E. E. Smith hardcover and a mother who ran her own ad agency and encouraged him to write. From that start, with a love of history (and as a practitioner of RPGs before the world ever heard of something called Dungeons & Dragons), it was inevitable he would embrace the dark side and become a sci-fi writer himself. He sold his first novel to Jim Baen, his enabler at Baen Books, in 1989. Since then, he has perpetrated more than seventy solo and collaborative novels and an unconscionable number of anthologies. He is perhaps best known for his character Honor Harrington, whom he hopes never to meet in a dark alley, given all the bones she has to pick with him. Casual acquaintances are warned never to press his “talk button.”
JOE HALDEMAN is the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Forever War, The Hemingway Hoax, Forever Peace, and many others (more than two dozen), a SFWA Grand Master and a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Joe has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Locus Award, the Rhysling Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. For thirty years, Joe was an Adjunct Professor teaching writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is also the fictional setting for his 2007 novel, The Accidental Time Machine. His most recent novel is Work Done for Hire. A painter and poet as well as author, Joe resides in Gainesville, Florida, with Gay, his wife of fifty-five years.
