Peynado, Brenda
Entry updated 21 April 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1985- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Tsunami" in Phantom Drift for October 2015; much of her work in short form, which ranges through Magic Realism to fairly straightforward sf, is assembled in The Rock Eaters (coll 2021). The waif biota Aliens who have arrived on Earth, effectively as migrants, in The Kite Maker (29 August 2018 Tor.com; 2018 ebook), find life in their new home increasingly taxing as the years pass. After decades of Climate Change and other degradations, Homo sapiens retreats to Virtual Reality Zones in The Touches (13 November 2019 Tor.com; 2019 ebook), but AI maintenance of the abandoned world outside begins to fail.
Peynado's first longer tale, Time's Agent (2024), features the discovery of accessible Pocket Universes where time moves according to differing principles (see Time Distortion), promising living platforms where scientists and others can work intensely and autonomously to understand the new Physics involved; but these Pocket Worlds are soon corporatized. Those trapped within these worlds are effectively colonized, in scenes reminiscent of various episodes from the Television Anthology series Black Mirror (2011-current). Outside, the larger world continues to suffer Ecological collapse. Time's Agent won the 2025 Philip K Dick Award. [JC]
Brenda Peynado
born USA: 1985
works
- Time's Agent (New York: TorDotCom, 2024) [pb/Islenia Mil]
collections and stories
- The Kite Maker (New York: Tor.com, 2018) [story: ebook: first appeared 29 August 2018 Tor.com: na/Chris Buzelli]
- The Touches (New York: Tor.com, 2019) [story: ebook: first appeared 13 November 2019 Tor.com: na/Keith Negley]
- The Rock Eaters (New York: Penguin Books, 2021) [coll: pb/]
links
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