Boundary Problems
March 2014 · Freehand Books
An audacious debut…
Thomas Wharton
Wild, sly, and magnetic
Mark Anthony Jarman
Where magic meets physics
Saleema Nawaz
Reviews & Mentions
“The collection is addictive, forcing its readers to see worlds beneath the world.”
Andrew MacDonald, Event
“For short fiction collections, check out [. . .] Greg Bechtel’s emotionally rich experiments with genre in Boundary Problems.”
Sofia Samatar, Strange Horizons
“Bechtel displays a refreshing willingness to experiment with aspects of narratology, lending his collection a surface unfamiliarity that resembles the literary equivalent of quantum mechanics.”
Steven W. Beattie, The National Post
“A vanishingly thin – and therefore easily crossed – line exists between dream and reality, magic and science, insanity and sanity in Greg Bechtel’s debut story collection…. The 10 stories crackle with intelligence and energetic dialogue.”
Carla Gillis, Quill & Quire
“The title of this collection nicely expresses an essential component in the tales: a transgressively Equipoisal approach to the fractal convolutions of twenty-first century Fantastika.”
John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
“Bechtel’s collection explores that permeable place between speculative fiction and realist fiction, not shying away from either, but interweaving them – because reality IS speculative, and good speculative fiction should evoke questions and speculations about reality.”
Derek Newman-Stille, Speculating Canada
(Links to additional reviews and media coverage here.)
News & Tidbits
Recent(ish) Publications
Most recently, M.A.G.P.A.I., a very short story about magpies, artificial intelligence, and predictive policing reform came out in Edify‘s annual Innovation Issue. A little further back, when asked to write something SF-focussed for Avenue Edmonton (now Edify), I came up with this short essay on my experience of Edmonton as an SF City and this review essay discussing of three amazing Edmonton-centric SF novels by Candas Jane Dorsey, Sean Stewart, and Minister Faust.
Berton House Writer’s Retreat
When I went to the Berton House Writer’s Retreat in Dawson City Yukon in late December 2019, I expected to be there for three months. Then the global pandemic hit, and I ended up staying for a total of twenty. It was absolutely glorious, and I was incredibly lucky to be there (and able to stay) for so long. I had this conversation with Megan Cole of Writing the Coast in February 2021, about fourteen months in.
Nevertheless (Tesseracts Twenty-One)
Queer sex magick, robot revolutionaries, and redemption-seeking magic carpet cabbies are just a few things you’ll find in this anthology of optimistic Canadian speculative fiction that I co-edited with the inimitable Rhonda Parrish. If you want to check it out, it’s available for purchase in both electronic and print formats.
Awards and Shortlists
In 2015, Boundary Problems was named an Alberta Book of the Year (trade fiction) by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. It was also a finalist for the ReLit Award, the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize and the William L Crawford Award.