Why am I passionate about this?

Hi! My name is Ben Berman Ghan, and I’m the author of the short story collection What We See in the Smoke and the novella Visitation Seeds. I’ve spent pretty much every day of my life since 2015 thinking about short fiction, writing it, or editing it. In many ways, the traditions and strengths of the genre of SF are owed to the short fiction writers and the magazines that have published them over the years — magazines that I keep on reading to this day. There is something electric to me about the short story, the concentrated fervor of an SF writer having to concentrate all that imagination and emotion into something tight and sharp. 


I wrote

What We See in the Smoke

By Ben Berman Ghan,

Book cover of What We See in the Smoke

What is my book about?

What We See in the Smoke twists the genres of realism and science fiction to tell the future history of…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Stories of Your Life and Others

Ben Berman Ghan Why did I love this book?

Honestly, if you haven’t read this book, I might ask where you’ve been for the last 20 years. Story of Your Life is a beautiful piece, warping time and space to ask questions about destiny, loss, and with some good aliens. Even if you have seen its film adaptation Arrival, you should still come back here and read what Chiang put down. And that’s not even all that this book has to offer! Such stories as Towers of Babylon, or Like What you See: A Documentary have always become such instant classics for me, that it feels like I’ve always read them, and can’t imagine a time when I didn’t know them.

By Ted Chiang,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Stories of Your Life and Others as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A science fiction genius . . . Ted Chiang is a superstar.' - Guardian

With Stories of Your Life and Others, his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose.

From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the firmament above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of…


Book cover of The Martian Chronicles

Ben Berman Ghan Why did I love this book?

The original “Fix Up novel”, short stories rewritten to all serve a single overarching narrative. Let me tell you a secret — this was the book of short stories that made me fall in love with the form. The concepts of connected stories found here were the template for how I approached continuity within my book What We See in the Smoke. When I want to teach someone what a good short story can do, I pick up my dogeared copy of this book, and I read There Will Come Soft Rains to them. I have done this several times. I’m sure people find it annoying by now.

By Ray Bradbury,

Why should I read it?

15 authors picked The Martian Chronicles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Martian Chronicles, a seminal work in Ray Bradbury's career, whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage, is available from Simon & Schuster for the first time.

In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, America’s preeminent storyteller, imagines a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor— of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a vanished, devastated civilization. Earthmen conquer Mars and then are conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race. In this classic work…


Book cover of Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment

Ben Berman Ghan Why did I love this book?

What shall we do, when at last the intricate oppressions, we have built for ourselves are pushed plainly into view? Cory Doctorow’s collection of novellas bills itself not fictions of tomorrow, but stories of our present moment. Immigration, police brutality, tech monopoly, online radicalization, all bubble sharply and brilliantly to the surface here, in a world that, frankly, doesn’t seem that far from ours. What will you do, when your toaster tells you that the bread you bought is not a compatible product? Cory Doctorow might tell you. You might not like the answer very much. Either way, with stellar writing and keen insight, Radicalized is the best kind of political fiction, unapologetic, and empathic.

By Cory Doctorow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Radicalized as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If you want a better future tomorrow, you're going to have to fight for it today.

Here are four urgent stories from author and activist Cory Doctorow, four social, technological and economic visions of the world today and its near - all too near - future.

'Unauthorized Bread' is a tale of immigration, toxic economic stratification and a young woman's perilously illegal quest to fix a broken toaster.

In 'Model Minority' a superhero finds himself way out his depth when he confronts the corruption of the police and justice system.

'Radicalized' is the story of a desperate husband, a darknet…


Explore my book 😀

What We See in the Smoke

By Ben Berman Ghan,

Book cover of What We See in the Smoke

What is my book about?

What We See in the Smoke twists the genres of realism and science fiction to tell the future history of Toronto, a story that stretches from this millennium to the next.

A musician is caught in an endless time loop unable to reach those he loves, two broke and desperate men plan a heist of a cannibal auction, a detective with sinister proclivities hunts for a criminal who is stealing dreams, and a college student searches for his brother in the hours before a nuclear war. All of these and more lead to a world where only rich cyborgs or the homeless remain, where teleportation has made crime impossible, and where city-sized spaceships are maintained by strange creatures while planet Earth itself is left behind.

Book cover of The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Book cover of Stories of Your Life and Others
Book cover of The Martian Chronicles

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Jeff Beamish Author Of No, You're Crazy

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When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable. And when she helps her drug-addict father win enough casino cash to accidentally overdose, she becomes the target of violent people determined to exploit her, and she goes on the run. Ashlee reaches out to a distant relative, traumatized war journalist Mike Baker. Soon, at least in Ashlee's eyes, they…


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