Meet Kangaroo,
a superpowered spy facing his toughest mission yet:
Vacation.

2017 Locus Awards Finalist
2017 Endeavour Award Finalist

Kangaroo's back!
And this time it's personal... maybe?

Publishers Weekly ★ review

Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers - Fire in the Pocket

includes KANGAROO tale "Fire in the Pocket"

Stories by Curtis C. Chen (陳致宇)

PRESS KIT

Once a Silicon Valley software engineer, Curtis C. Chen now writes fiction and runs puzzle games near Portland, Oregon. His debut novel Waypoint Kangaroo (a 2017 Locus Awards and Endeavour Award Finalist) is a science fiction thriller about a superpowered spy facing his toughest mission yet: vacation. The sequel, Kangaroo Too, lands our hero on the Moon to confront long-buried secrets.

Curtis is a Full Member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), "possibly the most powerful and militant of the writers' trade organizations" (DailyKos), and one of the co-founders of Puzzled Pint, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Want more insight into Curtis' writing process?
Become a Patron!

Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey - Better Luck to Borrow

includes "Better Luck to Borrow"

Dispatches from Anarres - Laddie Come Home

includes "Laddie Come Home"

Oregon Reads Aloud - Have Spacesuit, Will Travel

includes "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel"

includes "Ten Days Up"

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror - Making Waves

includes "Making Waves"

Leading Edge issue 65 - Somebody's Daughter

includes "Somebody's Daughter"

includes "Don't Fence Me In"

includes "At Long Last, Love"

includes "The Stories We Tell Ourselves"

Meet me at the SFWA Nebula Conference (ONLINE, registration required)!
More author events...

Novels

: WAYPOINT KANGAROO (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016)
    2017 Locus Awards Finalist, First Novel Category
    2017 Endeavour Award Finalist
    "an engaging character and a rich, believable world" - Kirkus Reviews
    "[a] rollicking splice of mystery and high-tech SF" - Publishers Weekly
    "a great, fun read for anyone who loves a mystery or a spy story" - Booklist
    MORE REVIEWS...; KANGAROO TOO (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017)
    "as smart and sassy as its title character" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
    "Anyone who loves science fiction is sure to love this book." - The Oregonian
    "kept me turning pages well past my bedtime" - Tina Connolly, Nebula-nominated author of Ironskin
    MORE REVIEWS...
: By the Light of the Moon (Curious Fictions, 2019)
What if the Moon were magic, looking at a full moon could transform humans into animals... and NASA decided to go explore it anyway?

Curtis is represented by Sam Morgan at The Lotts Agency.

Short Fiction

In Print: "Better Luck to Borrow" (Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey, 2022)
"a strange combo, but it really worked, and I definitely want to see more stories in this universe play in this kind of territory" - Amy Walker, TRANS-SCRIBE; "Habeas Codex" (Fireside Magazine, 2021); "One of Our Angels is Missing" (Devil's Ways, 2020); "Fire in the Pocket" (Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers, 2019); "Go, Space Racer!" (Playboy, 2018); "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" (Oregon Reads Aloud, 2016); "Ghost Patrol" (Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, 2016); "Laddie Come Home" (2016 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, 2015)
reprinted in Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin (2021); "Ten Days Up" (Mission: Tomorrow, 2015)
"suspenseful" - Locus Online // "often satirical, sometimes hopeful" - Publishers Weekly; "Making Waves" (SNAFU, 2014)
"a tale that's begging for [a] film version, preferably directed by Guillermo del Toro" - Horror Talk // more reviews...; "Somebody's Daughter" (Leading Edge Issue 65, 2014); "Don't Fence Me In" (Song Stories: Blaze of Glory, 2013); "At Long Last, Love" (From the Porch Swing, 2010); "The Stories We Tell Ourselves" (100 Stories for Haiti, 2010) + audio podcast (The Overcast, 2020)
Online: Echo Park 2060 (co-creator/showrunner, Realm, forthcoming); "What I Found in My Neighbor's Garbage" (Curious Fictions, 2021); "Midnight at the Comedy Club Under the Bridge" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Million Dollar Mustard" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Unwrapping the Moon" (Toasted Cake, 2020); "Working Graves" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "The Long Hello" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Kinky Bots" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Dragger's End" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "When Second Is Actually First" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "It Takes Two" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Cats Don't Care About Universal Basic Income" (Curious Fictions, 2020); "Ghosts of Earth (2020)" (Curious Fictions, 2020); Machina (series contributor, Realm, 2020)
    Season 1, Episode 4: "Pseudo, Make Me a Drink""
    Season 1, Episode 8: "The Promise You Made"
    Season 1, Episode 9: "The Bargain You Kept"; "Fresh Off the Bod" (Curious Fictions, 2019); "Defeated" (Curious Fictions, 2019); Ninth Step Murders (series contributor, Realm, 2019)
    Season 1, Episode 3: "The Fallen Executive"
    Season 1, Episode 6: "The Stolen Xiaohai"
    Season 1, Episode 9: "The Assassin's Nest"
    Season 2, Episode 2: "The Absent Artifacts"
    Season 2, Episode 6: "The Memory of Love"; "Players" (Kaleidotrope, 2018); "Like a Ghost I'm Gonna Haunt You" (Daily Science Fiction, 2016) + audio podcast (Toasted Cake, 2018); "Bounty Call" (Perihelion Science Fiction, 2015); "Godwin's Law" (The Future Fire, 2015); "It's Machine Code" (Unlikely Story #11: The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography, 2015) + audio reprint (Serial Box, 2020)
"a story that gets best right at the end" - Charlotte Ashley // more reviews...; "Zugzwang" (Daily Science Fiction, 2014)
"not in the least bit groundbreaking, but still enjoyable" - Psocoptera // more reviews...; "Born to the Legion" (Sledgehammer Writing Contest, 2013); "Restart" (Strangetastic, 2009); "Love Lucy" (365 Tomorrows, 2007); "Ghosts of Earth" (365 Tomorrows, 2006); "Birthdays" (365 Tomorrows, 2006); "Antique" (365 Tomorrows, 2006); FREEFALL: an outer space adventure serial (1995)
512 Words or Fewer: A weekly anthology of flash fiction (2008-2013), now collected in THURSDAY'S CHILDREN
"some of the tales would make great bedtime stories. Others will keep your kids up at night." - GeekDad; "Field Reports from the Department of Monster Resettlement" by L Chan (PodCastle, 2020); "A Time for Heroes" by Ed Lerner (StarShipSofa, 2019); "Silkstrand, a Minute of" by Anton Stark (Cast of Wonders, 2018); "To the Moon" by Ken Liu (cast member, PodCastle, 2018); "The Heaven-Moving Way" by Chi Hui; translated by Andy Dudak (Apex Magazine, 2018); "A Spirited Education" by Tony Pi (PodCastle, 2017); "Or Be Forever Fallen" by A. Merc Rustad (PodCastle, 2017)

Non-Fiction

Blogs

Curtis C. Chen's Journal: Some Folks Call It a Blog
Travels With Our Cats (2008): CKL+D drive across the USA with Jasper and Bayla.
On ProgrammableWeb: Netflix Open Sources "Resilience Engineering" Code Library
Tracking Hurricane Sandy via Social Media Data
W3C Proposes Push API Specification
Why Amazon Needs a Kindle API--and Will Never Have One
NASA Wants You to Help Build More APIs
...and more!
On Wired How-To Wiki: Get Your PC Wires Under Control
Make a Podcast
Open Docx Files
Read a Barcode
Set Up a Firewall

Curtis is not an aardvark.
Last modified: Tuesday, 10-May-2022 13:32:55 PDT

Stories by Curtis C. Chen (陳致宇)

Novels

Short Fiction

My Audio Narrations of Other Authors' Stories

Non-Fiction

Blogs

On Writing

Freelance