Bacon, Eugen
Entry updated 21 April 2025. Tagged: Author.
Working name of Tanzania-born computer scientist, editor and author Eugen Matoyo Bacon (1971- ), who lived for some years in the UK before moving to Australia; she began to publish work of genre interest with "Clone of Clones" as Eugen M Bacon, in Twisted Tails: An Anthology to Surprise and Delight (anth 2006) edited by J Richard Jacobs. Her first novel, Claiming T-Mo (2019), is an Equipoisal Planetary Romance in which some Space Opera topoi co-exist, not always easily, with a Magic Realist rendering of a complex family romance. As names are binding on character in this mutable venue – it is a literalism inherent in much Fantastika (see Clichés) – the naming of newborns is a fraught enterprise. The child given the name T-Mo is also called Odysseus (see Homer), and becomes a split personality bound upon a deracinating quest. "Making Claiming T-Mo: A Black Speculative Fiction" in An Earnest Blackness (coll 2022) is a useful analysis of the making and publishing of the tale. Bacon's second novel, Mage of Fools (2022), very similarly splits and melds realities, also in a romantically delineated Planetary Romance setting.
Bacon was honoured by Sfwa with the 2025 Solstice Award (see SFWA Grand Master Award). [JC]
Eugen Matoyo Bacon
born Tanzania: 1971
works
- Claiming T-Mo (Atlanta, Georgia: Meerkat Press, 2019) [pb/Micaela Dawn]
- Ivory's Story (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2020) [novella: hb/Vincent Sammy]
- Mage of Fools (Chicago, Illinois: Meerkat Press, 2022) [pb/]
- Broken Paradise (Edinburgh, Scotland: Luna Press Publishing, 2023) [novella: pb/]
- Secondhand Daylight (New Alresford, Hampshire: Cosmic Egg, 2023) with Andrew Hook [pb/]
collections and stories
- Dying and Other Stories (London: Fiction4All, 2018) [coll: ebook: na/]
- Thirteen Wicked Tales (London: Fiction4All, 2018) with E Don Harpe [coll: ebook: na/]
- Hadithi & The State of Black Speculative Fiction (Edinburgh, Scotland: Luna Press, 2020) with Milton Davies [coll: essay plus stories: pb/]
- Black Moon: Graphic Speculative Flash Fiction (Melbourne, Victoria: IFWG Publishing International, 2020) [coll: chap: illus/pb/Elena Betti]
- The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories (Chicago, Illinois: Meerkat Press, 2020) [coll: pb/Tricia Reeks]
- Speculate: A Collection of Microlit (Chicago, Illinois: Meerkat Press, 2021) with Dominique Hecq [coll: pb/]
- Danged Black Thing (Melbourne, Victoria: Transit Lounge Publishing, 2021) [coll: pb/Peter Lo]
- Saving Shadows: Graphic Prose Poetry and Micro-Lit (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2021) [coll: chap: illus/hb/Elena Betti]
- Chasing Whispers (Bowie, Maryland: Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022) [coll: pb/]
nonfiction
- Writing Speculative Fiction: Creative and Critical Approaches (London: Macmillan Education, 2019) [nonfiction: pb/]
- An Earnest Blackness (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Anti-Oedipus Press, 2022) [nonfiction: coll: hb/D Harlan Wilson]
works as editor
- Languages of Water (Fayetteville, Georgia: MV-Media, 2023) [anth: Climate Change: pb/]
- The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2022) (Rockville, Maryland: Caezik SF & Fantasy, 2023) with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Milton Davis [anth: Year's Best African Speculative Fiction: pb/]
links
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