S. B. Divya is the pen name of Divya Srinivasan Breed, who writes

speculative fiction Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, na ...

.Official Website: S. B. Divya
She is also an engineer and was the co-editor for '' Escape Pod'', along with

Mur Lafferty Mur Lafferty (born July 25, 1973) is an American podcaster and writer based in Durham, North Carolina. She was the editor and host of ''Escape Pod (podcast), Escape Pod'' from 2010, when she took over from Steve Eley, until 2012, when she was rep ...

,Official Website: Escape Pod
through April 8, 2022. Her debut novella, ''Runtime'', published by Tor.com, was nominated for the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novella.Runtime - Nebula Awards 2016
It was also optioned for film and television adaptation for Escape Artists.“S.B. Divya’s science fiction novel ‘Runtime’ to get movie adaptation”, AB Wire
The American Bazar
October, 2019. The indie game Rogue Wizards, released by Spellbound Studios, features her writing. Her debut novel, '' Machinehood'', was published in 2021 by Saga Press, and received both high praise, with one reviewer describing it as upgrading Asimov's laws of robotics, but also criticism for not going far enough in its exploration of ideas. Divya's second full-length novel, ''Meru'', was published in 2023, and has been described both as surprisingly optimistic about the fate of humanity and as an epic sci-fi in a unique world. Her short story collection, ''Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse and Other Possible Situations'', is published by Hachette India.

Personal life

Born in Pondicherry, India, as Divya, her given name, S.B. Divya immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was five. Her father was a professor of business administration and her mother was a software engineer. The S in her pen name stands for her patronym, Srinivasan, and the B stands for Breed, her husband's surname.“It’s never too late to educate yourself or start a new career: sci-fi writer SB Divya”, Aekta Kapoor
moneycontrol.com
September 05, 2020. Divya holds a BS degree from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with a major in Computation and Neural Systems, and an M.Eng. in Signal Processing from the University of California, San Diego. Her interests and hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, scuba diving, mountain biking, oil painting, and reading. She has been a disc jockey and is eclectic in her musical tastes.Clarkesworld
February, 2021

Career

Divya's first short story, "Strange Attractors", was published in Daily Science Fiction, followed by "The Egg" in the science journal, ''Nature''.“The story behind the story: The egg”. Colin Sullivan
Future Conditional
March 11, 2015. This was followed by several short stories in various magazines, including Analog, Lightspeed, and Mothership Zeta. S.B. Divya’s debut novella, ''Runtime'', is about a gruelling race across the Sierra Nevada among those equipped with exoskeletal and internal human enhancements.“Book Review: Runtime by S.B. Divya�
SF Bluestocking
August 29, 2016. Human enhancement also features in her first novel, released in March of 2021 titled ''Machinehood'', which is about the conflicts arising from the perceived rights of sentient robots and enhanced humans in a

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.“The Humanity of Machinehood”
Hugo Book Club Blog
February 15, 2021. Her vision of the future in her writings is conditioned by the scientific method that she was schooled in during her years at Caltech."Science Fiction or Speculative History? David Brin and Divya Srinivasan Breed
Techer:the Caltech Alumni Association Annual
2016/17. An example of this is the conflict between artificial intelligence and humanity that she envisions in ''Machinehood''. As Ray Kurzweil notes in his review of the book, “From the opening manifesto to its ingenious technologies, ''Machinehood'' builds an inspiring and believable vision of the future that is both thought-provoking and hopeful. It will leave you wishing that tomorrow could arrive a little sooner.”BookBrowse - Your guide to exceptional books
/ref> Prior to becoming a full time writer, Divya worked as a signal processing engineer and data scientist for several years. She holds multiple patents in pulse oximetry and signal processing. Her patents in pulse oximetry are antecedents to the Masimo Corp's iSpO2® Pulse Oximeter for home use.

Works

Novels

* ''Meru'' (2023) * ''Machinehood'' (2021)

Novellas

* ''Runtime'' (2016)

Collections

* ''Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse and Other Possible Situations'' (2019)

Anthologies

Where the Stars Rise
(2017)
The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction: Ed. Tarun K. Saint
(2019) * ''Escape Pod: The Anthology'' (ed.) (2020)
Rebuilding Tomorrow
(2020)

Short fiction

Soft We Wake
(2019)
Dusty Old Things
(2019)
Loss of Signal
(2018)
Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse
(2018)
An Unexpected Boon
(2017)
Looking Up
(2017)
Microbiota and the Masses: A Love Story
(2017)
Nava
(2017)
Gaps of Joy, and a Knot for Love
(2016)
The Boy Who Made Flowers
(2016)
Binaries
(2016)
Ships in the Night
(2015)
The Egg
(2015)
Strange Attractors
(2014)

Narration

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

BCS246 Sankalpa
by Marie Brennan

Awards and recognition

Runtime
- Nominated for the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Escape Pod
- Nominated for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine * Escape Pod - Nominated for the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine
Machinehood
- Starred review in the Publishers Weekly

References

External links

Official WebsiteBlogMachinehoodEscape PodInternet Speculative Fiction Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Divya, S. B. Living people 21st-century American women writers American speculative fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Indian emigrants to the United States People from Pondicherry California Institute of Technology alumni University of California, San Diego alumni