Johnson, Kij
Entry updated 10 November 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1960- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Roadkill" in Tales of the Unanticipated for Winter/Spring 1988, and who is perhaps best known for her impressive first solo novel, The Fox Woman (2000), a fantasy set in a vision of archaic Japan whose protagonist more closely resembles a figure out of fable bound by destiny than a Talking Animal [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. Her sf to date is of less interest, though her Tie to the Star Trek universe, Star Trek: The New Generation: Dragon's Honor (1996) with Greg Cox is competent. Some of the tales assembled in At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories (coll 2012) are sf, including the Nebula-winning "Spar" (October 2009 Clarkesworld); also collected here are the fantasies "Fox Magic" (December 1993 Asimov's), which won a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award; "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" (July 2008 Asimov's), winner of a World Fantasy Award; and "Ponies" (17 January 2010 Tor.com), another Nebula winner. She won a further Nebula, plus her first Hugo, for "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" (October/November 2011 Asimov's). In the novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (2016), a middle-aged female professor at Ulthar Women's College must undertake a quest through the Dreamlands of such H P Lovecraft tales as The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (in Beyond the Wall of Sleep coll 1943; 1955). [JC/DRL]
see also: Clarkesworld.
Kij Johnson
born Harlan, Iowa: 20 January 1960
works
series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Dragon's Honor (New York: Pocket Books, 1996) with Greg Cox [tie to the Star Trek universe: Star Trek: The New Generation: pb/Keith Birdsong]
individual titles
- The Fox Woman (New York: Tor, 2000) [hb/Susan Seddon Boulet]
- Fudoki (New York: Tor, 2003) [hb/Michael Dringenberg]
- The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (New York: Tor.com, 2016) [pb/Victo Ngai]
- The River Bank (Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2017) [illus/hb/Kathleen Jennings]
collections and stories
- At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories (Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2012) [coll: pb/jackiemorris.co.uk]
- The Man Who Bridged the Mist (Rockville, Maryland: Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick, 2013) [story: chap: first appeared October/November 2011 Asimov's: pb/]
- The Privilege of the Happy Ending: S/M/L Stories (Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2023) [coll: pb/]
works as editor
- Nebula Awards Showcase 2014: The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books/Pyr, 2014) [anth: Nebula Anthologies: Nebula Awards: pb/Raoul Vitale]
links
- Kij Johnson
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Talking Animals
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry