The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Henry Herz, various authors, Scott Sigler (Contribution by), Jonathan Maberry (Contribution by)

Overview

Luckily for humanity, scientist Marie Curie applied her brilliant mind and indomitable spirit to expanding the frontiers of science, but what if she had instead drifted toward the darkness?

At the cusp of between child- and adulthood, at the crossroads between science and superstition, a teen Marie Curie faces the factual and the fantastic in this fabulous collection of stories that inspire, delight, and ask the question: What if she had used her talents for diabolical purposes?

The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie includes twenty short stories and poems by award-winning writers including New York Times bestselling authors Seanan McGuire, Scott Sigler, Jane Yolen, Alethea Kontis, and Jonathan Maberry, among others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665047036
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Pages:	311
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies, and online and include stories in The X-Files and Predator series. As an editor he has edited books by such luminaries as Alan Dean Foster, Tracy Hickman, Frank Herbert, Mike Resnick, Jean Rabe, and more. He was also the first editor on Andy Weir’s bestseller The Martian.

Henry Herz has authored ten picture books. His children’s short stories have been published in Highlights for Children, Ladybug magazine, and in anthologies for Albert Whitman & Co. Henry also writes adult science fiction and fantasy short stories. He holds a BS in engineering from Cornell, an MS in engineering from George Washington University, and an MA in political science from Georgetown.

Scott Sigler’s fiction podcasts have drawn a huge and devoted following. His serialized stories have held the number one position in all the podcast indexes, including iTunes. Scott’s first hardcover release, Infected, was translated into a dozen languages and is being adapted for film by Random House Films/Rogue Pictures. Scott lives in San Francisco with his wife and their dog.

Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, and steampunk, for adults and teens. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Rot & Ruin, Vault of Shadows, The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, Mars One, Patient Zero, V-Wars, and many others.

He writes comics for Marvel (Black Panther, Punisher, etc.), Dark Horse (Bad Blood), and IDW (Warrior Smart, V-Wars). And he is the editor of several high-profile anthologies including The X-Files, Nights of the Living Dead, and Scary Out There. Several of his works are in development for movies and TV. He is a popular workshop leader, keynote speaker, and writing teacher. He lives in Del Mar, California.

Alethea
Kontis is the New York Times bestselling co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s
The Dark-Hunter Companion, and the author of two picture books.She was a student of science fiction greats Andre Norton and Orson Scott
Card, and has worked in a number of book-related jobs. She lives in Virginia.

Jane Yolen is the beloved author of more than 365 books for children and adults, including award-winning picture books, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In addition to two Nebula Awards and a National Book Award nomination, she has received a Golden Kite from SCBWI, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, and the California Young Reader Medal. Yolen’s How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? was an ALA Notable Book and a Christopher Medal winner. The book has gone on to become a widely popular bestselling series with over 15 million copies in print. She lives in Western Massachusetts.



Mark Teague is the internationally bestselling illustrator (and author) of more than 50 books for children. His numerous awards and honors include the Book Sense Book of the Year Award and the Christopher Medal. He has illustrated 12 full-size books and 11 board books in the widely successful How Do Dinosaurs...? series. He is the author of the popular Dear Mrs. LaRue, Firehouse!, and Jack and the Beanstalk and the French Fries. He lives in New York State.

SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the October Daye urban fantasy series, the InCryptid series, and other works. She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant.

Seanan lives in Seattle with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard.

She was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot.

Lissa Price lives in the foothills of southern California with her husband and the occasional deer.

Christine Taylor-Butler has authored more than eighty books for children, including her speculative series The Lost Tribes series (Move Books). A graduate of MIT, she is known for writing compelling nonfiction for young readers. In addition, she’s written a number of articles including “When Failure Is Not An Option,” an essay on the need for diversity in STEM literature (The Horn Book November/December 2021). A fierce advocate for literacy, Christine has spoken at ALA, NCTE, ILA was well as numerous World Science Fiction Conventions, World Fantasy, Boskone and the Nebula awards. She served as a judge for the Society of Midland Authors children’s nonfiction award, the Walter Dean Myers children’s literature award and PEN America’s Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. Christine is past president of the Missouri Writers Guild, Emeritus Board member of Kindling Words and Toastmaster for World Fantasy 2021. She is currently a member of the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society and a Director At Large of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA).

JO WHITTEMORE is the author of the tween humor novels, Front Page Face-Off, Odd Girl In, D is for Drama, Colonial Madness, and the Confidentially Yours series. She also penned The Silverskin Legacy fantasy trilogy. When she isn't writing, Jo spends her time with family and friends in Austin, dreaming of the day she can afford a chocolate house.

Sarah Beth Durst is the award-winning author of sixteen fantasy books for adults, teens, and kids, including The Queens of Renthia series, Drink Slay Love, and The Stone Girl’s Story. She won an ALA Alex Award and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and has been a finalist for SFWA's Andre Norton Award three times. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she spent four years studying English, writing about dragons, and wondering what the campus gargoyles would say if they could talk. Sarah lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her children, and her ill-mannered cat. For more information, visit her at sarahbethdurst.com.

Stacia Deutsch is the author of more than 300 children’s books. Her favorite books are mysteries, movie novelizations, time-travel adventures, and horse stories.

Editorial Reviews

03/06/2023

Via myriad fantastical situations boasting magic, supernatural creatures, and time travel, 20 chilling short stories and poems by authors including Sarah Beth Durst, Jonathan Maberry, Jo Whittemore, and others center pioneering physicist Marie Curie (1867–1934), born Marya Salomea Skłodowska. The anthology kicks off with background information on Curie’s life and a history of late 19th- and early 20th-century Poland, providing enriching context for the stories that follow. Jane Yolen’s entry, “Dark Lady, Salomea,” imagines the scientist’s thoughts on her innovations’ consequences in concise verse (“Do the lives lost, gained,/ weigh equal in your heart?/ Or do you just polish/ the medals and move on”). In “Mayra’s Monster,” Alethea Kontis sees Curie contending with a monster sent from the enigmatic darkness to frighten her. Some stories delve into Curie’s personal experiences, while others primarily spotlight her scientific endeavors as seen through the lens of sci-fi and fantasy buffs. Despite the volume’s genre-spanning fare, entries can feel somewhat narratively repetitive. Nevertheless, contributors coherently spin tales that ambitiously explore themes of grief, loss, occupation and oppression, and systemic misogyny. Those inspired by Curie’s accomplishments will find much to enjoy in this intriguing work. Ages 12–17. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2023

Gr 9 Up—Mixing the fantastical with the historical, Schmidt and Herz have collected 16 short stories surrounding the life and times of Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize—winning scientist. Each writer uses one segment of her life, whether it be her childhood, experiments and discoveries, or her marriage and children, to blend factual and fantastical imaginings of a curious woman living in a man's world of science in 1800s Europe. Readers should not be fooled—this is not historical fiction nor is it a nonfiction collection of her life but a wide-ranging, genre-bending exploration of Curie, using her name but playing loose with most of the facts. This approach makes it hard to categorize and contextualize. Several of the short stories include a "science note" at the end of the story about what was real; more often, the stories are not based in fact and that is distracting, while also appearing disingenuous to her greatness as a scientist, though the editors state that this is not their intent. Their intent is to inspire a new generation of STEM thinkers by blending it with speculative fiction. That value is recognized with the skilled pen of Jane Yolen, who writes four verse pieces interspersed in the collection, which injects a seriousness to the fantastical elements. VERDICT This falls short in totality. Preferred reading goes to nonfiction about Marie Curie rather than this collection loosely inspired by her life.—Alicia Abdul

School Library Journal

2023-01-12
A fictional collection of fantastical imaginings of Marie Curie’s teen years.

After an opening grounds readers in the basics of the life of Marya Salomea Skłodowska, better known as Marie Curie, as well as the important people and places of her youth, 16 authors imagine her youth, with mixed-genre twists. The more grounded stories imagine Marya using her scientific know-how to solve mysteries and save lives; these intermingle with tales of her hunting monsters and raising the dead. The result is jarringly different depictions of the same person; readers are best served by treating each tale as its own alternate universe. The most successful manage to straddle the divide by leaning into folklore, such as “The Cold White Ones” by Susanne L. Lambdin, a standout unfortunately marred by the repeated use of a slur for Romani people. The contributions overall tend toward dark themes, dwelling on Marya’s depression after deaths in her family (a formative experience that loses its power through the repeated focus it receives) and the oppression she faced as a woman and from Russia’s occupation of Poland. Occasional free-verse poems from Jane Yolen seem more concerned with Curie’s adult self and need more context than the short stories. Many of the entries are followed by a “Science Note” explaining the science used (frequently chemical reactions) and giving historical and cultural context.

Ambitious and offbeat but suffering from repetitiveness. (further reading, editor bios, author bios) (Historical speculative fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

Fun and quirky tales and ruminations about a genius, a hero, and a role model for the ages!”

author of The Postman and The Ancient Ones David Brin

A richly imagined collection from a stellar group of writers. Do not miss it!”

New York Times bestselling author of The Darwin El Jason M. Hough