Aoki, Ryka
Entry updated 9 September 2024. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) US musician, academic, poet and author, much of whose career has focused on the promotion of transgender artists (see Gender), active from before 2010; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Gift" in Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers (anth 2017) edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett. Aoki is of sf interest for her third novel, Light from Uncommon Stars (2021), a complexly Equipoisal tale involving an initial Pact with the Devil [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] whereby the transgender protagonist, to save her soul, must enlist several other violin virtuosos; an encounter with the retired captain of a Starship, who is on the run from Extraterrestrial foes, gives her some hope, and their quest through a Technicolor California becomes picaresque. Light from Uncommon Stars won an Otherwise Award for 2021. [JC]
Ryka Aoki
born
works (selected)
- Light from Uncommon Stars (New York: Tor, 2021) [hb/Jamie Stafford-Hill]
collections and stories
- Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines (no place given: Radar Productions, 2010) [poetry: coll: chap: pb/]
- Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul (Toronto, Ontario: Biyuti Publishing, 2015) [poetry: coll: pb/]
- The Great Space Adventure (Flamingo Rampant, 2019) [chap: picture book: illus/pb/Cai Steele]
links
- Ryka Aoki
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Pacts with the Devil
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry