In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette

Pest control is a necessity everywhere, even on a space station, and this station was overdue for a heavy dose of it. Particularly since the pests were breaking through from another dimension, and leaving holes through which even bigger alien creatures could emerge into our space, creatures which were much too dangerous to be called mere “pests” . . .

“Moongoose” is set in the same universe as the authors’ “Boojum,” a story I heartily recommend, and last year’s podcasted novelette, “The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward.” And this story will provide extra fun for H.P. Lovecraft fans, spotting all the places where his story titles, place names, and so on have been pressed into unusual service. That is not dead which can eternally be referenced and in strange footnotes, even death may die.

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. When coupled with a tendency to read the dictionary for fun as a child, this led her inevitably to penury, intransigence, and the writing of speculative fiction. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, and Campbell Award winning author of 25 novels and almost a hundred short stories. Her most recent series is the Eternal Sky trilogy from Tor, beginning with Range of Ghosts. She and Sarah Monette have written two novels and a number of short stories together.

Her dog lives in Massachusetts; her partner, writer Scott Lynch, lives in Wisconsin. She spends a lot of time on planes.

Sarah Monette was born and raised in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; she began writing at the age of 12, and hasn’t stopped yet. Appropriately, her PhD in English Literature was earned with a dissertation on ghosts in English Renaissance revenge tragedy. Her novels include Melusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis. Her next novel, The Goblin Emperor, will come out from Tor under the pen-name Katherine Addison. She won the Spectrum award in 2003 for her short story “Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland,” and many of her short stories have been cited on Best of the Year lists, and included in anthologies of the year’s best sf and/or fantasy. She currently lives in a 107-year-old house in the Upper Midwest with a great many books, two cats, and a husband. (There’s also a horse. He does not live in the house.) Her website is www.sarahmonette.com.