Buckell, Tobias S
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1979- ) Grenada-born author, in the US from adulthood, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Fish Merchant" in Science Fiction Age for March 2000, and who has been moderately prolific as short fiction writer, much of this work being assembled as Tides from the New Worlds (coll 2009) and Nascence: 17 Failed Stories and What They Taught Me (coll 2012). He began publishing novels with the Benevolent Satrapy sequence, comprising Crystal Rain (2006), Ragamuffin (2007) and Sly Mongoose (2009), which is set on the long-abandoned colony planet Nanagada (see Colonization of Other Worlds), whose culture is mythopoeically shaped around half-remembered Caribbean models (memories made more vivid by the presence of Genetically Engineered oldsters who were there from the first), and whose Technology is pure Steampunk. The succeeding volumes, set on varying worlds described in Planetary Romance terms, increasingly focus on Aliens and the threat of a terminal Invasion.
After The Cole Protocol (2008), a Tie to the First Person Shooter Videogame Halo: Combat Evolved, and The Executioness (2011) a harsh tale located in the same world as Paolo Bacigalupi's The Alchemist (2011 chap) (see Shared Worlds), Buckell published a singleton, Arctic Rising (2012), set within the Arctic Circle of a Near Future Earth savaged by Climate Change. Now that the ice caps have melted, oil corporations are attempting to plunder the last oil reserves from the north; the United Nations is undermanned; Ecological activists are scheming to Terraform the planet through an act of intolerable violence. The world rests on the cusp of terminal Disaster. Hurricane Fever (2014) is also set in that world, though with a different cast. A tendency to answer speculative conundrums through violent action may mildly mar Buckell's work to date, but his work seems increasingly focused. The young protagonist of A Stranger in the Citadel (2023), a singleton set far enough into a Post-Holocaust world for Medieval Futurism to have taken hold, comes across a librarian (see Libraries) with yet untold secrets that may change things.
Buckell's nonfiction assembly of blog posts, It's All Just a Draft: Some Thoughts on Writing (coll 2019), provides advice based on his own experiences. [JC]
Tobias S Buckell
born Grenada: 2 January 1979
works
series
Benevolent Satrapy
- Crystal Rain (New York: Tor, 2006) [Benevolent Satrapy: hb/Todd Lockwood]
- Ragamuffin (New York: Tor, 2007) [Benevolent Satrapy: hb/Todd Lockwood]
- Sly Mongoose (New York: Tor, 2008) [Benevolent Satrapy: hb/Todd Lockwood]
- The Apocalypse Ocean (Tobias T Buckell, 2012) [self-published via Kickstarter: Benevolent Satrapy: hb/Pablo Defendini]
- Xenowealth (Tobias T Buckell, 2015) [coll: self-published via Kickstarter: Benevolent Satrapy: hb/Jenn Reese]
Halo
- Halo: The Cole Protocol (New York: Tor, 2008) [tie to Halo: Combat Evolved: Halo: Combat Evolved: pb/Isaac Hannaford]
- Halo: Envoy (New York: Simon and Schuster/Gallery, 2017) [tie to Halo: Combat Evolved: Halo: Combat Evolved: pb/Chase Toole]
individual titles
- Arctic Rising (New York: Tor, 2012) [hb/Getty Images]
- Hurricane Fever (New York: Tor, 2014) [hb/]
- The Trove (Tobias T Buckell, 2017) [self-published via Kickstarter: pb/]
- The Runes of Engagement (San Francisco, California: Tachyon Publications, 2024) with Dave Kletcha [pb/]
collections and stories
- The Omega Egg (Part 17 of 17): For Whom the Bellflower Tolls (place not given: Fictionwise, 2006) [ebook: chapter of multi-author Round-Robin novel: na/]
- Tides from the New Worlds (Stirling, New Jersey: Wyrm Publishing, 2009) [coll: hb/]
- The Executioness (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2011) [novella: hb/J K Drummond]
- The Tangled Lands (New York: Simon and Schuster/Saga, 2018) with Paul Bacigalupi [coll/anth/omni: assembling the above with a further tale, plus The Alchemist (2011) and a further tale by Bacigalupi, all connected: hb/Krzysztof Domaradzki]
- Nascence: 17 Failed Stories and What They Taught Me (West Warwick, Rhode Island: The Merry Blacksmith Press, 2012) [coll: hb/]
- Mitigated Futures (Tobias T Buckell, 2012) [coll: self-published: hb/Jenn Reese]
- Xenowealth: A Collection (Tobias T Buckell, 2015) [coll: self-published: hb/Jenn Reese]
- Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories (Bonney Lake, Washington: Fairwood Press, 2021) [coll: pb/Dabeen Lee]
- A Stranger in the Citadel (San Francisco, California: Tachyon Publications, 2023) [early audiobook version Audible Originals (2021): pb/]
nonfiction
- It's All Just a Draft: Some Thoughts on Writing (place not given: Xenowealth LLC, 2019) [nonfiction: pb/Tiger Bright Studios]
works as editor
- Diverse Energies (New York: Lee and Low Books/Tu Books, 2012) with Joe Monti [anth: hb/John Picacio]
links
previous versions of this entry