ethaisa

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/11/ammonite-on-sale-1-99-one-day-only-2/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86652

Apple Books | Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Google Play

Ammonite was my first novel.

• “Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, is the first novel of a major talent.” — Denver Post
• “Uncompromisingly packed with non-dogmatic feminist and queer ideologies… Griffith reveal[s] herself to be fluent in presenting realistic science and its implications, capable of cinematic clarity in her prose, insightful with emotions and character.” — Washington Post Book World

It was a cut-rate little mass market paperback original, with no publisher support and zero marketing or publicity budget—in the days before social media. Yet it won a boatload of awards and was named #25 on Esquire‘s Best Science Fiction of All Time.

• “Gripping and gutsy, rich in layers of feminist and queer thought, Ammonite gleefully throws a stick of dynamite into the sci-fi firmament.” — Esquire
• “Ammonite is utterly believable, and at times heart-wrenching in its emotional power; the characterisation is impeccable.” — New Statesman and Society
• “Ms. Griffith is an astonishingly gifted writer… Her work is of the very best in the lesbian and gay literary field.” — Allen Ginsberg

Curious about why I’ve been inducted into the SFF Hall of Fame?

• “Ammonite is a self-assured, unselfconscious, convincing depiction of a world without men…doing what only SF can do, and doing it with skill and brio. It answers the question ‘When you eliminate one gender, what’s left?’ (‘A whole world,’ is the answer.)” — Ursula K. Le Guin
• “Nicola Griffith’s first novel, Ammonite, flies all the banners of traditional sf but beneath the banners, it is armed to the teeth against convention.” — Interzone

Why I was recently honoured as the 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master?

• “Ammonite represents a major, no, make that a revolutionary change…a remarkable departure from the commonplace.” — Locus
• “A serious assault on conventions so enormous that it is very much more dangerous, sometimes, than writing about lesbianism.” — Dorothy Allison
• “Pays homage to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness without inviting invidious comparisons.” — New York Times Book Review

Well, this is where it all began.

• “Probably the best debut novel of the year—an accomplished, moving, intelligent, and graceful examination of gender roles, and a helluva good read.” — The New York Review of Science Fiction
• “Pays homage to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness without inviting invidious comparisons.” — New York Times Book Review

So here’s your chance to try it—for just $1.99—today only. All US platforms (maybe Canada too, but you should check that). If you’ve already read it, buy it for a friend. Perhaps they’re curious, too…

Bookshop.org | Apple Books | Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Google Play

• winner, Tiptree award
• winner, Lambda Literary Award
• winner, Premio Italia
• runner up, Locus First Novel Award
• shortlist, British Science Fiction Award
• shortlist, Arthur C. Clarke Award
• Esquire, Best 75 Sci-Fi Novels of All Time

Apple Books | Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Google Play

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/11/ammonite-on-sale-1-99-one-day-only-2/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86652

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/09/lapis-earth/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86628

My absolute unit of a Grand Master award arrived!

I kept trying to get a decent picture of it to show the lovely colours of all the different stones.¹ I tried dim light, bright light, sunlight… All the things. None of them conveyed its true glory—and sheer size. It’s well over 30 cm tall, maybe 11 cm square, and its weight is not trivial (though only about half what it might be if it were made of glass).

Then I lugged it into my office and stuck it on my desk while I decide what to do with it. Serendipitously I put it in front of a padded mailer (which I’m about to sent out to the winning bid on one of my Locus pledges) and that made everything look much nicer.

So then I futzed about a bit more and finally got a picture of the lapis sphere. It’s huge—at least squash-ball size—and in front of the buff envelope it looked its proper colour. Also remarkably like our planet turning serenely in space.

So here you go: my Damon Knight Memorial planet, Lapis Earth.

1. See The glory of a grand gong for an annotated image of what’s what. ︎

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/09/lapis-earth/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86628

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/08/aud-begins-to-meet-uk-readers/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86615

The Aud books have been out in the UK 5 days. I don’t really have much of a window into how they’re selling and/or how readers are responding, but I know that at in Edinburgh and London at least she’s beginning to find her way into new hands. I am jealous—I still don’t have my author copies.

Here’s Canongate in Edinburgh—home of Caongate Books, home of Aud in the UK.

And here’s Daunt’s, a bookshop in London, where apparently Aud was spotted face-out in a high-traffic area of the shop.

If anyone else has pictures, or simply reports of sightings of Aud out and about, I’d be happy to hear about it. (Pet pix a bonus!)

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/08/aud-begins-to-meet-uk-readers/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86615

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/03/today-at-last-aud-in-the-uk/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86526

Buy

Bookshop.org | Amazon UK | Waterstones | WH Smith

Today, for the first time, the Aud trilogy (The Blue Place, Stay, Always) will be published in the UK. It only took 27 years. I know I’m not even remotely an impartial observer but these books kick ass. I love them with a crazy love. And I would dearly like UK readers to go buy a copy—and then tell me what you think.

Do you know any other queer noir/not-noir novels ¹ praised by Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Lee Child, Manda Scott, Francis Spufford, Laurie King, Ivy Pochoda, Robert Crais, Alex Gray, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis, and more? No? Then maybe you should go find out what brings together such disparate writers in their love.

You can buy now or borrow from your local library. Enjoy!

Buy

Bookshop.org | Amazon UK | Waterstones | WH Smith

1. They use some of the prose style of noir but they don’t do noir, in the sense that Aud, the protagonist, does not trap herself in an ever-downward spiral. The three books between them describe a hopeful arc—with, y’know, lots of sex, and scams, and seamy cityscapes. Aud, like Hild, has an essential joy in life no matter what tight spot she finds herself in… ︎

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/03/today-at-last-aud-in-the-uk/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86526

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/02/pulling-the-wings-off-flies/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86530

There are certain people in the world who are so uncaring of others’ needs and feelings that they are untroubled by conscience—they have no conscience. These are the people who as children pulled the wings off flies for fun, just because they could. These are people who, when they have power, kill other people.

Here today, by ‘people’ I am referring specifically to the current US administration. There are literally dozens of decisions the Trump administration and its minions in Congress have made that will kill people at home and abroad. Remember that: dozens.¹ I’m going to mention just two as examples, one foreign, one domestic.

Domestically:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency, the OBBB (‘one big beautiful bill’) package just passed by the Senate and now back with the House would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. 11.8 million Americans will lose their health insurance in the next decade due to the bill’s changes to Medicaid and the ACA, while more than half Americans will pay fewer taxes.

According to the Yale Budget Lab, after taking into account tax and social safety net changes, the poorest 20% of U.S. households will lose an average of 2.9% of their real income. The real income of the next 20% of households would remain flat. The top 60% of households (those earning over about $36,500 a year) will all benefit—but those in the top 20% (earning over about $120,500) will benefit massively—and just look at how much the top 5% (earning >$265,000) will gain.

At those low incomes, nearly 3% can mean the difference between survival and not: the old, the frail, the ill, the disabled will die—most especially the old, fail, ill and disabled people of colour. Can you spell ‘eugenics’?

Then add in the ballooning deficit, and what they will mean in terms of the value of the dollar and the ability of the US to borrow, and things get virulently worse, very quickly. In the short term, many people in the US will die; in the long term, many many people will die.

Internationally

Again, I’m going to talk about just one decision (of so many, so very many): the shuttering of USAID. I just looked at a new paper in The Lancet: ²

Higher levels of USAID funding—primarily directed toward LMICs, particularly African countries—were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0·85, 95% CI 0·78–0·93) and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality (RR 0·68, 0·57–0·80). This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths). Significant decreases were also observed in mortality from tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and maternal and perinatal conditions. Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.

Which boils down to

• USAID funding saved nearly 92 million lives during the 21 years analyzed
• including over 30 million children under age 5
• as result of o USAID, 14 million people will die within 5 years—14 million preventable deaths
• and 14 is just the average—it could be as many as 19 million

So what’s my point?

Do not try to appeal to the administration or Congress’s better natures. They don’t have one. They understand power. The power we have is our voice and our vote. Use it. Thinks of the tens of millions of people—real people, with real lives—who are dying now and will die in the future because people like us gave those wing-pullers power. Take their power away. Please.

1. Possibly hundreds. So many I truly don’t know where to start. Pandemic readiness, science funding, space funding, climate research, Gaza, Ukraine, tariffs, climate regulations, the ACA… ︎
2. The full text, open access: do read it. ︎

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/02/pulling-the-wings-off-flies/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86530

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/01/spear-audiobook-sale-4-99/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86450

It’s for sale on Audible worldwide for two weeks, starting today; I’m not sure about other platforms. But I hope so, because I loved doing the narration and I’m proud of it, and the more people who get to listen to it the happier I’ll be. And that’s a great price!

https://nicolagriffith.com/2025/07/01/spear-audiobook-sale-4-99/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=86450