About
New Zealand born fantasy writer and podcaster Philippa (Pip) Ballantine is the author of the Books of the Order, The Chronicles of Art, and The Shifted World series. She is also the co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with her husband, Tee Morris.
The first book in the series, Phoenix Rising, won the Airship Award for Best Steampunk Fiction, and was the number eight best Science Fiction book of 2011 according to Goodreads.com. Their follow-up, The Janus Affair, was the seventh most popular science fiction book of 2012 on Goodreads.com, and won the Steampunk Chronicles Reader’s Choice Award for Best Fiction. The third book in the series, Dawn’s Early Light, won the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Steampunk of 2014. Her short stories of fantasy, steampunk, and even post-apocalyptic dystopia can be found in collections like Steampunk World, Tales of a Tesla Ranger, Clockwork Fairy Tales, and Hell Hath No Fury.
In 2023, Pip was invited to write in one of her favorite science fiction IPs. Alien: Inferno’s Fall, written for 20th Century and published by Titan Books, dropped her like a team of Colonial Marines into the world of xenomorphs, corporate espionage, and galactic politics. Inferno’s Fall and this famous franchise proved to be a natural fit for her unique brand of horror.
She is also a well-known essayist in the field of pop culture, her editorials appearing in collections like A Taste of True Blood, published by Ben Bella Books; and offering strategy alongside Tee in their popular Social Media for Writers title.
Her awards include an Airship, a Parsec, the Steampunk Chronicle Reader’s Choice, the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for steampunk, and a Sir Julius Vogel. While returning as often as possible to Aotearoa, Pip lives in Virginia with Tee and seven cats. (And yes, the story of how they now have seven cats is a story for the ages.)
Featured Work
Seventh Circle
As human colonies are obliterated by the dark pathogen and hideous monstrosities proliferate, a family of scavengers find an amnesiac who may hold the secrets to the forces tearing apart the galaxy.
Life amongst the stars is brutal. Human colonies are being obliterated by a dark pathogen launched from mysterious ships, which turns whole populations into hordes of ravenous monsters. And no one knows what happened to the Jackals, the cadre of soldiers hunting down the perpetrators of these atrocities.
When a family of scavengers recover the amnesiac Mae Hendricks amongst the wreckage of an unidentified ship, they bring a world of pain down on themselves and the civilians of Guelph Station. Mae doesn’t know where she is from or her true nature, nor that she is being hunted by vicious adversaries.
Mae’s past could reveal the conspiracy that is tearing the galaxy apart, but may well unleash a tide of snarling terrors....
