Grace Chan

DEATH BY WATER (Escape pod, Dec 2023)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FROM THE WASTE LAND

Shortlisted, Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction short story

“Please, Peiyi.” You twitch, frantic. The odour of wet rot rises into my nostrils. “Just tell me what’s happened to my body. I can handle it.”

I approve the highest dose of sedative and start the scan. “You know I’m not Peiyi.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I know.”

Post Hacking for the Uninitiated (CLARKESWORLD, Oct 2023)

My vision went hazy. I blinked hard, focusing on the two pains sitting like stones at the base of my skull. I unnetted the smaller one first. The release was a crest—euphoria, tenderness, blinding light—and then waves of stabbing pain, washing up inside my foot. I shuddered in the chair.

“Just take the analgesia,” Calam snapped.

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t like the stuff. I didn’t like how much I liked the stuff. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you try some pacification yourself, kid?”

Calam laughed, a brittle noise.

As Though I Were a Little Sun (fireside, apr 2022)

WINNER, Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story

‘A strange, sad, and gorgeous piece about transformation.’ – Vanessa Fogg

In my new form, I drink sunrays with unfathomable need. I open the pores of my numerous leaves. I yearn for light to pour through my tender membranes, to soak the chlorophyll pigments embedded within my coiled thykaloid spaces. Only then will I vibrate with energy.

He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars (Clarkesworld, Jul 2021)
Reappears in Escape Pod, feb 2023

Shortlisted, Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story

Appears in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Vol 7

‘Wildly inventive, lyrical, and ultimately moving.’ – Vanesssa Fogg

‘This portrait of fame with its costs and benefits is very well done’ – Karen Burnham for Locus Magazine

‘Science fiction with a tender, gentle heart…this story is bittersweet and lovely through and through.’ – Maria Haskins

An ice storm, a froth of glassy dust, was blowing in over the bone-colored hills. He was on Enceladus; his therapist was on Mars. He wanted to describe how sometimes his body felt hollow, and other times he felt his skin could not contain all that was within him—but he didn’t have the words. Half the solar system divided them, and more.

To The Dark Side of the Moon (Hexagon, Jun 2022)

I disembark into a shadowy chamber strung with stone amulets, smelling of incense and battery fuel. An android in a wide-sleeved cheongsam helps me remove my pressure suit and eases my joints with warm, gelatinous hands.

Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu (Lightspeed, May 2022)
Reappears in ESCAPE POD, May 2024

Appears in The Best Science Fiction of the Year Vol 8

‘the characters are intriguing enough to make you want to know everything about them.’ – Tor.com

‘one hell of a ride…action packed and almost cinematic…manages to do some excellent worldbuilding, and give us a great set of characters, while never losing its momentum.’ – Maria Haskins

Sure, I could’ve snagged another mechanic. Thurnos was stuffed with sad souls vying to underbid one another for a warm meal and a warm bed. But after ten years, you get used to someone. You figure out whether you can live with their worst habits.

Jigsaw Children (Clarkesworld, Feb 2020)

Shortlisted, Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella

I think I’m reasonably lucky, only having five parents. I guess my donors didn’t have too many risk mutations. Some of my classmates have been spliced together from eight, nine, even twelve donors. I don’t envy them the task of juggling their Chinese New Year dinners.

In Your Eyes (SPINNING AROUND: THE KYLIE PLAYLIST, COMING NOV 2024)

Our three hundred and fifteenth boyfriend is exactly our type: vulnerable narcissism disguised as meekness, a mellifluous tenor voice, and a brain with an unusually high proportion of fatty tissue. His soft mouth twitches incessantly, as though practising his next words. The way he gazes at us — eyes luminous with tentative hope, searching for his reflection — fills us with anticipation.

DIGITAL LOVE, OR HOW I GOT YOU BACK (WESTERLY 69.1, 2024)

For the default setting, I choose the dress you wore for our second anniversary, the one with whipped-cream ruffles licking at your shoulders.

In the Beginning, There Were Teeth (Hell & High Water, Going Down Swinging, 2023)

There are many ways to know a person. I have known others who sat in this dentist’s chair. I parted their wrinkling lips, probed their clasping gums, and felt their private pains. Many of them I released with only a gentle wish of wellbeing.

Death By Water (From The Waste Land, PS Publishing, 2022)
ALSO AVAILABLE in Escape pod, Dec 2023

Shortlisted, Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction short story

“Please, Peiyi.” You twitch, frantic. The odour of wet rot rises into my nostrils. “Just tell me what’s happened to my body. I can handle it.”

I approve the highest dose of sedative and start the scan. “You know I’m not Peiyi.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I know.”

The Devil’s Hair (Where the Weird Things Are Vol. 2, Deadset Press, May 2023)

Chloe told them in a proud whisper that this was a sign. “It’s called an omen,” she explained smugly. “I read it in a book. It means bad things are going to happen, like someone might die.”

Mother of the Trenches (Unnatural Order, CSFG Publishing, Dec 2020)

You turn your little eyes to me, taking in my massive shapelessness, the dark patterns shifting over my skin, and my many arms, coiled around us like a nest—protecting, tasting, thinking.

Of Hunger and Fury (Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Omnium Gatherum, Sep 2020)

Bram Stoker Award, Best Anthology (2020)
Shirley Jackson Award, Edited Anthology (2020)
British Fantasy Award Nominee, Best Anthology (2021)

When I see my mother standing in the front yard, two decades disappear in a blink. I can hardly bear to look at the faded white walls, the creeping lattice of vines like bloated veins. She pulls the metal gate open. Her bare wrists look strangely vulnerable. My husband bounds over to her, grasps her hand in both of his, leans in to peck her cheek.

The Ethnographer (Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Jun 2020)

I step down from the Linnaeus into a crimson haze creased with shadows. The wind howls like a banshee symphony. At once, I understand why the Vullon have no hearing organs: the noise of this alien planet inspires madness.

Father’s House (Aurealis, Apr 2020)
Reprinted in Etherea Magazine, Sep 2022

The familiar smells of tiger balm, ginseng and his father’s laundry powder envelop him. He removes his shoes and places them neatly next to his father’s black sneakers. At a touch of the control panel, the lights shimmer into life… 

The Mark (Verge: Uncanny, Monash University Publishing, Jun 2019)
Reprinted in Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women

Shortlisted, Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story

shortlisted, Norma K Hemming Award

Tor.com in-depth review by Anne M. Pillsworth and Ruthanna Emrys

I move my hand, close the three inches, press our pinkies together. His skin is as cold as dead meat. James moves his hand away, unconsciously, still talking.

The Dunes of Ranza (Going Down Swinging: Pigeonholed, Nov 2018)
Reprinted in Space and Time #140, March 2021

Ula raised a slender finger towards my nose. “You are what?”

“That’s a big question. I’m a human. Mostly female, five per cent artificial. Born on Earth, believe it or not. Dad was an elitist. I’m a Beaconer.”