Suzanne Palmer

Suzanne Palmer is an American science fiction writer known for her novelette "The Secret Life of Bots", which won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2018.^[1] The story also won a WSFA Small Press Award and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.^[2][3]

Suzanne Palmer
Other names	zanzjan
Occupation	Writer
Website	zanzjan.net

Career

Palmer has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.^[4] She was the head librarian of the UMass Science Fiction Society.^[1] She lives in Massachusetts, where she works as a system administrator at Smith College.^[1]

She has been publishing short fiction and poetry since 2005.^[5] She cites John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, and Martha Wells as some of her influences and describes her primary genre as "space opera-style science fiction".^[6] She moderates the SFF room on the AbsoluteWrite forums using her online name zanzjan.^[6]

Her first full-length novel, Finder, a thriller about an interstellar repo man, was published by DAW Books in 2019.^[4][7] She has since published three more novels in that series: Driving the Deep, The Scavenger Door, and Ghostdrift.

In 2020, Palmer won the Theodore Sturgeon Award for her story "Waterlines".^[8]

Awards

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	Ref[9]
2017	"Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man"	Eugie Award	—	Finalist	[10][11]
2018	"The Secret Life of Bots"	Hugo Award	Novelette	Won	[12]
		Locus Award	Novelette	Nominated
		Theodore Sturgeon Award	—	Finalist
		WSFA Small Press Award	—	Won
2020	Finder	Locus Award	First Novel	Nominated
	"Waterlines"		Novella	Nominated
		Theodore Sturgeon Award	—	Won
	"The Painter of Trees"	Theodore Sturgeon Award	—	Finalist
		WSFA Small Press Award	—	Nominated
2021	Driving the Deep	Locus Award	Sci-fi Novel	Nominated
2022	"Bots of the Lost Ark"	Hugo Award	Novelette	Won	[13]
		Locus Award	Novelette	Nominated
		Theodore Sturgeon Award	—	Finalist
2023	"Falling Off the Edge of the World"	Locus Award	Novelette	Nominated
	"The Sadness Box"	Locus Award	Novelette	Nominated

Bibliography

Novels

Finder Chronicles

• Palmer, Suzanne (2019). Finder (hardcover 1st ed.). DAW Books. ISBN 9780756415105.
• —— (2020). Driving the Deep (hardcover 1st ed.). DAW Books. ISBN 9780756415068.
• —— (2021). The Scavenger Door (hardcover 1st ed.). DAW Books. ISBN 9780756415150.
• —— (2024). Ghostdrift (hardcover 1st ed.). DAW Books. ISBN 9780756418878.

Short fiction^[a]

Year	Title	First published	Reprinted/collected	Notes
2015	"Tuesdays"	Palmer, Suzanne (March 2015). "Tuesdays". Asimov's Science Fiction. 39 (3): 21–24.		The first page was omitted due to publisher's error; it was instead printed as p.9 in the April/May 2015 issue.

• "The Ins and Outs of Intergalactic Diplomacy" (2005) (published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #20)
• "He's Got Skeleteons" (2006) (published in Aoife's Kiss webzine)
• "Spheres" (2006) (published in Interzone #207)
• "The Neighborly Thing" (2007) (published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #31)
• "Concession Girl" (2008) (published in Interzone #217)
• "Silence and Roses" (2009) (published in Interzone #223)
• "Zombie Cabana Boy" (2010) (published in Black Static #17)
• "The Ceiling Is Sky" (2011) (published in Interzone #234)
• "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (2011) (published in Comets and Criminals #1)
• "Surf" (2011) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Two for the Starry Night" (2012) (published in Comets and Criminals #2)
• "Adware" (2012) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Tangerine, Nectarine, Clementine, Apocalypse" (2012) (published in Interzone #239)
• "Hotel" (2013) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Fly Away Home" (2014) (published in Interzone #251)
• "House Party Blues" (2014) (published in Black Static #39)
• "Shatterdown" (2014) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Moogh and the Great Trench Kraken" (2015) (published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #181)
• "Lazy Dog Out" (2016) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Ten Poems for the Mossums, One for the Man" (2016) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Detroit Hammersmith, Zero Gravity Toilet Repairman (Retired)" (2016) (published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact)
• "Belong" (2016) (published in Interzone #265)
• "Number Thirty-Nine Skink" (2017) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Books of the Risen Sea" (2017) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "The Secret Life of Bots" (2017) (published in Clarkesworld Magazine #132)
• "The Streaming Man" (2018) (published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact)
• "Stones in the Water, Cottage on the Mountain" (2018) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "R.U.R-8?" (2018) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Thirty-Three Percent Joe" (2018) (published in Clarkesworld Magazine #145)
• "Taking Icarus Home" (2019) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "The Painter of Trees" (2019) (published in Clarkesworld Magazine #153)
• "Waterlines" (2019) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Dave's Head" (2019) (published in Clarkesworld Magazine #156)
• "Table Etiquette for Diplomatic Personnel, in Seventeen Scenes" (2021) (published in Asimov's Science Fiction)
• "Bots of the Lost Ark" (2021) (published in Clarkesworld Magazine #177)

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Notes

1. Short stories, unless otherwise noted.