Neon Yang
Neon Yang | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1982 or 1983 (age 41–42) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Singapore |
| Education | University of East Anglia (MFA) |
| Genre | |
| Notable works | Tensorate series |
| Website | |
| neonyang | |
Neon Yang,[1] formerly JY Yang, is a Singaporean writer of English-language speculative fiction best known for the Tensorate series of novellas published by Tor.com. The first Tensorate novella, The Black Tides of Heaven, was a finalist for the 2018 Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Kitschie Award.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The third Tensorate novella, The Descent of Monsters, was a finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ SF/F/Horror.[9] Their debut novel, The Genesis of Misery, the first book in The Nullvoid Chronicles, is scheduled for release in 2022 by Tor Books.[10]
Biography
Yang is non-binary and queer, and uses they pronouns.[11] They legally changed their name to "Neon" in 2020.[1] They have a master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia[12] and were a member of the 2013 class of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.[13]
Career
Yang has published short fiction since 2012 in publications such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine and Strange Horizons.[14] Their novelette, "Waiting on a Bright Moon" was a top ten finalist for the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novelette.[15] Their novelette, "Circus Girl, The Hunter, and Mirror Boy" was a finalist for the 2020 Ignyte Award.[16] Their novelette, "A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, Is Infinite Potential" was a top ten finalist for the 2021 Locus Award for Best Novelette.[17]
Their Tensorate series of novellas began in 2017 with the simultaneously released The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune, which were published by Tor.com to critical acclaim.[18] The Black Tides of Heaven received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it "a captivating Buddhist-inspired steampunk setting" that "captures an epic sweep in compact, precise prose", and a positive review from Library Journal, which called it (and its sibling volume, The Red Threads of Fortune) "an impressive, fresh debut steeped in Chinese culture".[19][20] The Red Threads of Fortune was also reviewed by Publishers Weekly, which said "though not as gripping as [The Black Tides of Heaven], the novella authentically depicts trauma and lays promising groundwork for future books in the series".[21] The Black Tides of Heaven was a finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella, and the 2018 Kitschies Golden Tentacle, and was named one of the 100 best fantasy novels of all time by a Time magazine panel.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The Tensorate series continued with the novellas The Descent of Monsters in 2018 and The Ascent to Godhood in 2019.[22][23] The Descent of Monsters was a finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ SF/F/Horror.[9] The Ascent to Godhood received a positive review from Publishers Weekly, which called it "a thrilling adventure [that] stands alone, as well as providing moving, complicated backstory for the earlier books".[24]
Yang's debut novel, The Genesis of Misery, the first in The Nullvoid Chronicles trilogy, was announced by Tor Books in 2020, to be released in September 2022, and described as a retelling of the story of Joan of Arc as a mecha space opera.[25][13][26] The Genesis of Misery received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it a "vibrant tour de force" and "a triumph", noting that it "presents a simultaneous embrace and inversion of Chosen One narratives" and its "themes of faith, suffering, queerness, and duty".[10]
Themes
Yang's work revolves around "the human body as a vessel for storytelling", and is based on their background as a molecular biologist, journalist and science communicator.[27] They have described themself as "a deep pessimist about human nature," saying that "the best we can do is to recognize this and mitigate that assholic nature when we can. I think, ultimately, that’s what most of my stories end up being about."[12] They have referenced David Mitchell, Helen Oyeyemi, and William Gibson as influences on their writing.[12]
Yang has described their Tensorate novellas as "queer Asian science fantasy."[28] The series has been described as "silkpunk" by reviewers.[18]
Bibliography
Novels
The Nullvoid Chronicles trilogy
- The Genesis of Misery, Tor Books, 2022
Novellas
Tensorate series
- The Black Tides of Heaven, Tor.com, 2017, ISBN 978-0-7653-9541-2
- The Red Threads of Fortune, Tor.com, 2017, ISBN 978-0-7653-9540-5
- The Descent of Monsters, Tor.com, 2018, ISBN 978-1250165855
- The Ascent to Godhood, Tor.com, 2019, ISBN 9781250165886
Standalone
- Between the Firmaments, Book Smugglers Publishing, 2018 ISBN 978-1942302827
Other short fiction
Collections
- The Ayam Curtain, Math Paper Press, 2012, ed. as June Yang with Joyce Chng, ISBN 978-981-07-4008-5
Stories
| Title | Year | Length | First published |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Interview" | 2012 | Short story | The Ayam Curtain, Math Paper Press |
| "The War Going on Beneath Us" | 2012 | Short story | The Ayam Curtain, Math Paper Press |
| "Where No Cars Go" | 2012 | Short story | Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction, Math Paper Press |
| "Captain Bells and the Sovereign State of Discordia" | 2012 | Short story | The Steampowered Globe, AS¡FF / Two Trees |
| "Old Domes" | 2013 | Short story | We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology, Futurefire.net Publishing |
| "Tiger Baby" | 2013 | Short story | From the Belly of the Cat, Math Paper Press |
| "Storytelling for the Night Clerk" | 2014 | Short story | Strange Horizons, 16 June 2014 |
| "Harvestfruit" | 2014 | Short story | Crossed Genres, July 2014 |
| "Patterns of a Murmuration, in Billions of Data Points" | 2014 | Short story | Clarkesworld, issue #96 |
| "Mother's Day" | 2014 | Short story | Lontar: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, issue #3 |
| "Cold Hands and the Smell of Salt" | 2015 | Short story | Daily Science Fiction, Jan 2015 |
| "A Sister's Weight in Stone" | 2015 | Short story | Apex Magazine, May 2015 |
| "Letter from an Artist to a Thousand Future Versions of Her Wife" | 2015 | Short story | Lightspeed Magazine, issue #61 |
| "RE (For CEO's Approval) Text for 10th Anniversary Exhibition for Operation Springclean" | 2015 | Short story | Bahamut, issue #1 |
| "A House of Anxious Spiders" | 2015 | Short story | The Dark, Aug 2015 |
| "Song of the Krakenmaid" | 2015 | Short story | Lackington's, Fall 2015 |
| "Temporary Saints" | 2015 | Short story | Fireside Magazine, issue #28 |
| "Secondhand Bodies" | 2016 | Short story | Lightspeed Magazine, issue #68 |
| "Her Majesty's Lamborghini and the Girl with the Fish Tank" | 2016 | Short story | Lontar: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, issue #6 |
| "The Blood That Pulses in the Veins of One" | 2016 | Short story | Uncanny Magazine, issue #10 |
| "Transfers to Connecting Flights" | 2016 | Short story | An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables, Stone Bird Press |
| "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" | 2016 | Short story | Lightspeed Magazine, issue #73 |
| "Dismantling London" | 2016 | Short story | Geeky Giving: A SFF Charity Anthology, CreateSpace |
| "The Beachings" | 2016 | Short story | The Sockdolager, Fall 2016 |
| "The Slow Ones" | 2017 | Short story | GlitterShip, Winter 2017 |
| "Auspicium Melioris Aevi" | 2017 | Short story | Uncanny Magazine, issue #15 |
| "Glass Lights" | 2017 | Short story | The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories, Solaris |
| "Waiting on a Bright Moon" | 2017 | Novelette | Tor.com |
| "A Game of Lost and Found" | 2018 | Short story | Lackington's, Spring 2018 (co-authored with Mike Allen, Vajra Chandrasekera, Amal El-Mohtar, Natalia Theodoridou) |
| "Circus Girl, the Hunter, and Mirror Boy" | 2019 | Novelette | Tor.com |
| "Bridge of Crows" | 2019 | unknown | The Mythic Dream, Saga Press |
| "The Search for [Flight X]" | 2020 | Short story | Avatars Inc., XPRIZE |
| "A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, Is Infinite Potential" | 2020 | Novelette | Clarkesworld, issue #164 |
| "The Exile" | 2020 | unknown | The Book of Dragons, Harper Voyager |
See also
References
- ^ a b @itsneonyang (1 September 2020). "Signed the paperwork today which means I AM NOW! LEGALLY!! NEON!! Hence the new Twitter handle ☺️ Next up: making it OFFICIAL by changing state ID (💀) and all the banks, insurance, credit card etc (💀💀💀) Legal language is so fucking dramatic lmfao" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 1 September 2020 – via Twitter.
- ^ a b "Announcing the 2017 Nebula Awards Nominees". Tor.com. 20 February 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ a b "2018/1943 Hugo Award Finalists Announced". theHugoAwards.org. 31 March 2018. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
- ^ a b "2018 Hugo and Campbell Awards Winners". Locus Magazine. 19 August 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ a b "2018 World Fantasy Awards Winners". Locus Magazine. 4 November 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ a b "Announcing The Kitschies' 2017 Shortlists". Tor.com. 19 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
- ^ a b Matthews, Cate (15 October 2020). "The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang". Time. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ a b Ho, Olivia (18 October 2020). "Singaporean author Neon Yang makes Time's list of The 100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time". The Straits Times. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ a b Edit Team (7 March 2019). "31st Annual Lammy Finalists". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ a b "The Genesis of Misery". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "About the Writer". Neon Yang. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
- ^ a b c Coleman, Christian A. (July 2018). "Interview: JY Yang". Lightspeed. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ a b Tor.com (12 January 2022). "A Space Opera Twist on Joan of Arc: Revealing The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang". Tor.com. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
- ^ Neon Yang at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- ^ "2018 Locus Awards Winners". Locus Magazine. 23 June 2018. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "Ignyte Awards Winners". Locus Magazine. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "2021 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists". Locus Magazine. 1 May 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ a b "J.Y. Yang's two novellas are like rojak, a surprisingly delicious blend of unexpected flavours". The Straits Times. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "The Black Tides of Heaven". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ McArdle, Megan M. (15 September 2017). "The Black Tides of Heaven". Library Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "The Red Threads of Fortune". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "The Descent of Monsters". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ Chadwick, Kristi (15 June 2018). "The Descent of Monsters". Library Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "The Ascent to Godhood". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "Joan of Arc Meets Space Opera: Announcing a New SF Trilogy From Author Neon Yang". Tor.com. 28 September 2020. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ Bui, Ammi (12 August 2022). "The Genesis of Misery". Library Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
- ^ "Innumerable Voices: The Short Fiction of JY Yang". Tor.com. 29 July 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Author's official website, visited 12/4/2021
External links
Interviews
- Author Spotlight: JY Yang, Xander Odell, Lightspeed Magazine, issue #68, 2016
- Asian Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror: A Round Table Discussion, Aliette de Bodard, Mithila Review, 2016
- JY Yang: Energy Systems, Francesca Myman, Locus Magazine, 2018
- Interview: JY Yang, Christian A. Coleman, Lightspeed Magazine, issue #98, 2018