I can’t celebrate Women in Genre without Lauren Beukes - a true powerhouse from South Africa with experience as a journalist in some of the most dangerous cities in the world. I first heard of Beukes through Angry Robot, who published Beukes’ “Moxyland” as one of their first titles and have since published her second novel “Zoo City”. In both novels Beukes proves her an insanely talented storyteller with edge and a gift to include social critique in her genre.

Oddly, I didn’t fall in love with Beukes with “Moxyland”, though to be fair I’m don’t read sci-fi enough to appreciate all the novel had to offer. I took issue with the execution rather than what it said about our society and its potential evolution in the near future. Beukes creates a very bleak, painfully realistic rendition of a society in worship of brands – a frightful, possible outcome from the aggressive branding big corporations have embarked on. The events in “Moxyland” hint as to the eventual devaluation of human life. It’s scary to think, let alone read it, but faulty pacing and vacant characters prevented the novel from becoming a true landmark. In short, it wasn’t raw and it needed to be.

I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d read Beukes again, until I read “Zoo City” – an urban fantasy tale I hoped someone would write. In short, Beukes slayed the story. It’s what urban fantasy needs as a genre and Lauren Beukes seized the genre potential to bring forth a living, breathing portrait of South Africa in her portrayal of Johannesburg as a dangerous and unforgiving place. Even in her first novel, “Moxyland”, I hailed Beukes as an author capable of bringing cities to life and urban fantasy needs its urban settings to rise as entities. Beukes prose excels at this task and the results are incredible. Continue reading »