Moore, Fiona
Dr Fiona Moore is a Canadian academic, writer and critic based in London. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford, she is Chair of Business Anthropology at Royal Holloway, University of London
She characterises her new novel, Captain Artemis and the Martian Undead, as “Gerry Anderson but with lesbians. It’s a queer #ownvoices novel that blends the cheeky lesbian protagonist of A Master of Djinn with the alternate twentieth-century space exploration of the Lady Astronaut series and For All Mankind.”
It’s 1965 and Captain Evangeline Artemisia ‘Artie’ Quelch is the lead pilot on the British Commonwealth Space Programme’s shuttle run between Earth and its thriving Mars colony, with adventure beckoning in the archaeological dig site nearby and romance with the lovely Doctor Evelyn Verity in full swing. And then people begin dying. As unexplained deaths and equipment failures mount up, the colony’s security officer Margaret Salmond accuses the rival European colony, while others blame the ancient Martian technology unearthed at the dig. Artie’s attempts at investigating are thwarted when her problematic journalist ex-girlfriend turns up to ask awkward questions. When the dead begin mysteriously coming back to life, it’s up to Artie to prevent war between the Commonwealth and Europe and to save the lives of everyone on Mars from the terrors the colonists have accidentally unleashed—but it all depends on her being able to atone for her past and win the heart of Evelyn…
Fiona’s earlier work (including two stories set in the same universe as this novel) has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Cossmass Infinities, and five consecutive editions of The Best of British SF. She has been a BSFA Award finalist three times and has published one novel, Driving Ambition (with Bundoran Press), three stage plays, four audio plays, a number of guidebooks to cult television series, and the nonfiction crossover Management Lessons from Game of Thrones – which has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. She is also a regular contributor to Galactic Journey, a multi-Hugo-nominated blog dedicated to the science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s.