John Jarrold

T. R. Napper is a multi-award-winning science fiction author. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Interzone, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous others, and been translated into Hebrew, German, French, and Vietnamese.

Before turning to writing, T. R. Napper was a diplomat and aid worker, delivering humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia for a decade. During this period, he received a commendation from the Government of Laos for his work with the poor. He also was a resident of the Old Quarter in Ha Noi for several years, the setting for his debut novel, 36 Streets, which was published by Titan Books in 2022 and has won the Aurealis Award for Best SF Novel.

In his second novel The Escher Man, one man peels back the layers of implanted memories to save his family in this taut, explosive and thrilling high-concept SF novel. Perfect for fans of William Gibson’s The Peripheral, the classic film Total Recall, Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It will be published by Titan in 2024, as will his new novella, Ghost of the Neon God.

These days he has returned to his home country of Australia, where he works as a Dungeon Master, running campaigns for young people with autism for a local charity.

In 2020 he won the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella. “The Weight of the Air, the Weight of the World,” and the  ACT Notable Awards Fiction Category for “Neon Leviathan.” In 2017 he won the Aurealis Award for Best Short Story for “Flame Trees”, (Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2016; and another of his stories “A Strange Loop” (Interzone, January/February 2016) was included in Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year.

Napper was awarded a creative writing doctorate in 2019 for his thesis The Dark Century: 1946 – 2046. Noir, Cyberpunk, and Asian Modernity. 

Praise for 36 Streets:

“Raw and raging and passionate. This is cyberpunk literature with a capital fucken L. Get it while it’s hot.” –  Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon

“Quintessential cyberpunk, hard-nosed, sharp edged and gleaming.”—Adrian Tchaikovsky, award-winning author of ‘Children of Time’

“[36 Streets] has things both novel and serious to say about the psychological effects of intrusive media. This is a kick-the-door-down account of how past traumas — personal and national — may one day be weaponised for social control.”—The Sunday Times

“Brutal, brooding, brilliant . . . an angry vision of violence wrapped around a complex meditation of memory, trauma and hegemony. This is cyberpunk with soul.” Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, author of The Salvage Crew

“Not since Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl have I been so utterly enthralled by a science fiction novel. 36 Streets is a cyberpunk tour de force – richly textured, nuanced, and shot-through with emotional depth. I could practically feel the sweaty, grimy, bloody, tropical heat oozing from the pages. One of the standouts of the year.”—Richard Swan, author of The Justice of Kings

“High-octane, immersive SF at its best. 36 Streets is sure become a classic in the field.” Kaaron Warren, Shirley Jackson Award-Winner

“Napper has made a remarkable character in the form of his protagonist Lin Thi Vu, subverting to some degree the conventions of the world of male power and violence. It’s a great achievement. The set pieces, the interludes, of performed mastery with weapons and skill, are well poised and set the scene with ritualised violence.” Stephen Teo, author of Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition

“An engrossing, intriguing action-packed duty tour of a tech-thick, violence-infused, neon-scorched near future gangland Vietnam, where unwinnable games run hot and wild. Highly recommended.” Cat Sparks, author of Lotus Blue

“Beautiful, shimmering, ghostly science fiction.” Anna Smith-Spark, author of Empires of Dust

Bestselling novelist Richard Morgan has been fulsome in his praise of Napper’s debut short fiction collection, Neon Leviathan (2020):

“Haunting and iridescent – combines the paranoid weirdness of the best Philip K Dick, the chilly but cool-as-fuck future gleam of cyberpunk, and an achingly beautiful literary inflection reminiscent of mainstream heavyweights like Murakami or Ishiguro. T. R. Napper’s futures feel at once gritty and vertiginous and close-focus human in the way only the best SF can manage. Whatever roadmap he’s working from, I can’t wait to see where he’s taking us next.”