Introducing… A ONCE AND FUTURE PAST

Marianne’s new SF novel will be coming out later this year (October/November 2025). It’s her first return to a fully SF premise and contains elements of time travel.

The story begins in a future USA, where an Australian woman is trapped in a situation rapidly devolving into anarchy, and has to travel across country to find a way home. On her journey she becomes mixed up with a militant feminist group and finds herself thrust back into the past…

Stay tuned for snippets and more information, ahead of the release. This is a wild ride! Above is a placeholder image. Cover coming soon.

The Caribbean Gothic Down Under: Caribbean Influences in Marianne de Pierres’ Parrish Plessis Novels

It’s always so humbling to have your work critically explored. This was from a couple of years ago. Though not the Sentients of Orion series, thought I’d share it for those interested in deeper connections to science fiction.

Dr Gerry Turcotte, who is the current President & Principal, St Mark’s College & Corpus Christi College, Vancouver, wrote this research paper, which was published in 2018 in the journal Caietele Echinox. Here is the description from the citation.

The Caribbean Gothic Down Under: Caribbean Influences in Marianne de Pierres’ Parrish Plessis Novels

Author(s): Gerry Turcotte
Subject(s): Studies of Literature
Published by: Fundatia Culturala Echinox
Keywords: Caribbean Literature; Marianne de Pierres’ Parrish Plessis; Gothic; Science Fiction; Indigenous Identity Politics;

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates the way voodoo, postcolonial theory, Indigenous spirituality and Caribbean culture are brought together to discuss contemporary and future race politics down under in the novel Nylon Angel, Code Noir and Crash Deluxe. Marianne de Pierres’ Parrish Plessis books are edgy, street-smart science fiction novels set in a future Sydney where government has effectively collapsed, media controls its citizenry and gangs vie for control of the streets. In some ways it appears a fairly typical model for SF writing, except that de Pierres has invested great effort in the delineation of racially complex groups. Of these, the encounter between Caribbean (and Voodoo), shamans, and Indigenous Kaidaitcha men, makes for are freshing, but uncomfortable, contemporary negotiation of race politics in Australia.

“Is there a Woman in this Space Opera?”A Gender Analysis of the Aliens of Orion

Delighted to share another scholarly article from Dr Thea Boschoff and Dr Deidre C Byrne that explores the Sentients of Orion world. Below is the publications details and a description from the citation:

“Is there a woman in this space opera?” a gender analysis of the aliens of Orion.

Authors – Dorothea Boshoff, Deirdre C Byrne

Publication date – 2021

Journal – Fafnir–Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

Publisher – The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

This article provides a textual analysis of The Sentients of Orion, a space-opera series by Australian feminist SF author Marianne de Pierres, with a view to investigating the series’s depiction of aliens as a reflection of contemporary views of human gender. This highlights the question of whether aliens are still used to reflect on the state of human gender roles now that society is moving past the simple black and white of the male/female binary. We undertake a qualitative exploration of selected aliens through the theoretical lenses of Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performative and queer theory. By drawing on these interpretive paradigms, we suggest that de Pierres’s aliens both register and reflect a significant broadening of the gender spectrum.

The Echo of Love

On January 2021, Aiki Flinhart published an anthology described as:

Futures and pasts, Fearless and Frightening.

Relics, Wrecks, and Ruins is a must-read collection for all fans of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. A celebration of legacy.
* Bizarre remnants of a lost civilisation emerge from the ice.
* The ghosts of a drowned town wait to be awakened.
* A witch with a dragon problem.
* What Elvis will do to protect his fellow artists from annihilation.
* An ancient spaceship carries the last, fragmented memories of Earth.
* Broken souls of the dead are passed on to the new-born.
…These and many more tales showcase the hopes, remnants, and fears of humanity.

In this collection is a story set in the Sentients of Orion world, entitled “The Echo of Love.”

Runnalong the Shelves described it as:

The Echo of Love by Marianne de Pierres – a rather obnoxious human expert is asked by the space station management to interview a strange casket that may contain an alien. A story that mixes understanding of language, love with something eerie building to a memorable finale. A lovely puzzle of of a tale for the reader to solve.

The full table of contents includes:


Washing the Plaid by Juliet Marillier
The Names of the Drowned are These by Angela Slatter
The God Complex by Jan-Andrew Henderson
A Malediction on the Village by Garth Nix
In Opposition to the Foe by Pamela Jeffs
The Echo of Love by Marianne de Pierres
16 Minutes by Jasper Fforde
American Changeling by Mary Robinette Kowal
Pattern on Stone by James S.A. Corey
The Wreck of the Tartarus by Lee Murray
Six-String Demon by Sebastien de Castell
The Shard by Ian Irvine
The Wind and the Rain by Robert Silverberg
Thaw by Mark Lawrence
Morgan of the Fay by Kate Forsyth
Geisha Boy by Kylie Chan
Cosmic Spring by Ken Liu
Dreams of Hercules by Cat Sparks
River of Stars by David Farland
The Mirror in the Mirror by Jack Dann
Relict (noun) A Widow; a thing remaining from the past by Alison Goodman
Heartbreak Hotel by Dirk Flinthart
The Movers of the Stones by Neil Gaiman

Purchase this anthology

Looking For a Recommendation?

Over at TOR.COM Mark Chitty gave some excellent recommendations for reading SF.

Mark says:

‘If you like the original Star Wars film trilogy, you should try Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, Marianne de Pierres’ Sentients of Orion series, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, Simon Green’s Deathstalker series, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Ian Mcdonald’s Desolation Road.’