Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She's a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, a British Fantasy Award finalist, a Foreword Book of the Year silver award winner, and was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for 'doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction'. Danged Black Thing by Transit Lounge Publishing was a finalist in the BSFA, Foreword, Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards, and made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a 'sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work'. Eugen's creative work has appeared worldwide, including in Apex Magazine, Award Winning Australian Writing, Fantasy Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Year's Best African Speculative Fiction. Visit her website at eugenbacon.com and Twitter feed at @EugenBacon

Ivory's Story by Eugen Bacon

Ivory's Story is currently shortlisted for a BSFA Award.

Ivory's Storydeftly combines the contemporary thriller with darker, older traditions. In the streets of modern day Sydney a killer stalks the night, slaughtering innocents, leaving bodies mutilated. The victims seem unconnected, yet Investigating Officer Ivory Tembo is convinced the killings are anything but random. The case soon leads Ivory into places she never imagined. In order to stop the killings and save the life of the man she loves, she must reach deep into her past, uncover secrets of her heritage, break a demon's curse, and somehow unify two worlds.

CURATOR'S NOTE

African Australian author Eugen Bacon is one of the new voices featured here, but what a voice! She's been taking the speculative fiction world by storm, and Ivory's Story has just been nominated for the British Science Fiction Award. Dive right in and discover her world!

African Australian author Eugen Bacon is one of the new voices featured here, but what a voice! She's been taking the speculative fiction world by storm, and Ivory's Story has just been nominated for the British Science Fiction Award. Dive right in and discover her world!

African Australian author Eugen Bacon is one of the new voices featured here, but what a voice! She's been taking the speculative fiction world by storm, and Ivory's Story has just been nominated for the British Science Fiction Award. Dive right in and discover her world! – Lavie Tidhar

 

REVIEWS

  • "Bacon masterfully blends myth, heritage, and self-discovery in this impressive, genre-defying work of speculative fiction... Seasoned speculative fiction readers will be wowed by Bacon's careful, layered worldbuilding, well-developed characters, and otherworldly atmosphere."

    – Publisher’s Weekly [Starred Review]
  • "Eugen Bacon's latest novel has a lot going for it. Alot… if the reader is adventurous enough,Ivory's Storywill both startle and seduce."

    – Locus
  • "Not a word is wasted… Ivory's Storyis a fast-paced organic fantasy shone through a poet's timbre and I loved it."

    – Black Static 
  • "This is a sparkling gem of a story, one which is sure to appeal to anyone with a sense of wonder and imagination… I felt a sense of loss when I turned the final page."

    – NB Literary Magazine 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Five: The Detective

1.

And so, there was a beast. Right here on Earth.

It perched on the topmost steeple of an arched gateway into Sin Palace. It was a red-eyed demon in a crouch. Its body disintegrated and came together like a swarm of bees, ashy specks that hovered in the horizon, forming and deforming in overlapping shapes, casting shadows above the guest house that was once a church building.

Two men swung hand in hand that balmy night. They shared a laugh, and its loudness silenced the night. They paused for a dusk-induced, booze-fuelled moment of passion before crossing the arched gateway into the Gothic building. Access was by a clandestine doorbell just below a psychedelic stained-glass window of St Bridget and her plump leg crushing the head of a serpent. Double solid doors each carved with a cross into the wood swung open, swung shut. It was a priceless entry by membership only, an entry into privacy that was a promise.

Straight spliffs, hard shots in a room that was once a vestry. As the lights dimmed and the men strained against each other, they failed to notice the odour of smoke and rot that entered the room and the shapeshifting silhouette that hovered above them and sprinkled cinders upon them.

2.

And then there was Operation Limelight.

So after the man who was tall as a mandisa pine, graceful as a kudu, a beautiful man dark as night who lived in the land of Great Chief Goanna, there was a story that had a beast come to Earth.

The epilogue starts here, right now.

It opens with a flight: one that filled Detective Inspector Ivory Tembo with ashes and lead. She felt colourless and washed-out, a lead boulder in her stomach. She had no faith in the journey's purpose but had exhausted all options. A murderer was out there, slaying men and scattering peanuts in women's heads – they were disoriented, every single one of them; couldn't get a word out of anyone – and Operation Limelight was light-years from cracking the case.

In Ivory's mind, death was a splash of colour: claret speckled with cinders. This is what she saw in every scene associated with the killings: sprays of rich red, traces of ash.

It tickled Bahati, indulged him even, that she would explore his theory based on a myth.

'It's simple,' he said. 'Track down the seer.'

'In Orange Desert?' she said.

'In Orange Country.'

'And why should I believe you?'

'My professorship? That sagely knowhood of native studies?' he said half jokily, half grave.

Seer, medium, medicine woman – what did it matter?

But it did. Matter. Witchcraft never solved crime.