Stephen Embleton was born in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and is a resident in Oxford, after his 2022 academic fellowship at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Stephen was awarded the Best Novella by an African in the 7th Nommo Awards presented in person at Glasgow WorldCon in August 2024 for his Sauúti-based novella, "Undulation". Stephen was awarded a literary grant by the Royal Literary Fund in 2024, providing financial assistance to write while recognising the literary merit of his body of work and literature-related activities. His first short story was published in 2015 in the IMAGINE AFRICA 500 speculative fiction anthology, followed by the 2016 Edition of Aké Review, the debut edition of Enkare Review 2017 and more. He is a charter member of the African Speculative Fiction Society and its Nommo Awards initiative. His then unpublished fantasy novel, Bones & Runes, was a finalist in the 2021 James Currey Prize for African Literature, and first published in the UK in 2022. He is one of the ten African writers making up the Sauúti Collective – the Afro-centric, fantasy and speculative fiction shared-world. Stephen's academic essay, "Cosmologies and Languages Building Africanfuturism", appears in the 2024 Bloomsbury essay collection 'Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction'.
One killer. An ocean of souls.
Science has learned to understand the soul, and can track souls through this life and beyond.
A specialist unit of the South African police is using a Soul Tracker device in a harrowing search for a serial killer. But when one's soul can incriminate them before birth, can there ever be justice? Who can be trusted with the power to look inside the soul?
This science fiction novel by South African author Stephen Embleton has been likened to a mix of "Minority Report" and "Silence of the Lambs", with unique ideas all its own. The thrilling story features a serial killer, new and disturbing technology, and an ancient secret society. And flying cars.
"Soul Searching is a philosophical thriller that engages readers through a combination of complexity, action and imagination. The melange of ideas makes for a rich and intricate tale."
– Damien Lawardorn, Aurealis #138"A quick-paced narrative written with precision and interlaced with registers of the criminal and banal, magical and real, spiritual and technological, futuristic and current. This debut exemplifies the work of a sensitive writer with a gift for imagining the inner lives and afterlives of humans. "
– Joanna Woods, Africa in Words"Soul Searching applies spirituality to mechanics and crime solving, to healing and recovering our humanity, in the timeless universal that cuts across cultures worldwide, but also in the immediate reality of the multicultural local, where time is running out, and people will die. A hell of a ride. Except there is no Hell, and your ride might come crashing down on you."
– Mame Bougouma Diene, Strange HorizonsThe woman's breathing could be heard from the other room. Strained but softer now. Hand still shaking, annoying. Why the hell was she so determined to resist? Will have to ask her.
In a few minutes.
A few minutes to calm down, accept what had happened. Then it's her turn to listen to what I have to say. Just listen. That was all. She'd had plenty of time to say what she wanted. Throw abuse, cry, bite, bleed. Now it's my turn.
No noise. Quiet. That's all I want.
Just me and my thoughts. No outside irritations. No disruptions. No noise pollution.
You give someone the opportunity and all they'll do is mouth-off about their problems and "poor me" bullshit. Smile at someone in the checkout queue and they think that gives them the right to talk to you.
"Fuck off about the price of milk. I don't give a shit! See the store manager over there? He doesn't give a shit either, so why the fuck should I?"
Stunned silence. Precious. But that's when they start again.
Louder.
The room was quiet now. Dark and quiet.
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In one goose-bumped instant, Mike's heavyset frame was depleted and fragile, as if a surge of electricity had left his body. A surging tide of nausea rose from deep within him, but a quick, strong breath kept it down. He inhaled again. He didn't have time to look back at the room, at the rest of the squad. The disappointment was thick in the air. Or was that his own?
"She's gone, Ruth," said Mike. "She looks like she's heading straight for Heaven." He drew a deep breath as he continued to follow the red dot across the Screen. "I think she'll need it after what she's been through," he whispered to himself.
He pressed his earpiece in his ear. No response.
"Hicks," he said sternly, "did you hear me? She's gone, damn it. Respond." Nothing came through his earpiece.
"Banks? Do you read me, at least?"
"Yeah, Angel," came the breathless response, "I read you."
"Where the hell's Ruth?" snapped Mike.
"She was ahead of me."
"Ruth Hicks! Come in! It's over!"
"I think give her a few minutes, Angel."
"I need a status ASAP, Banks," replied Mike. "Get back to me in a few then." He sat down on one of the desks, still monitoring the Screen. That was it. They had come close but not close enough. They'd missed saving the victim and their chance at getting at the killer. He was still out there. Square one: another dead vic, another floating soul, and an elusive green dot out there that they couldn't latch onto.
He watched the red dot, gathering speed, already out of Hell, and nearly through Purgatory, on its way to Heaven and maybe even to The Beyond; if it was lucky. Mike Haddon, AKA Angel, or Archangel, was Chief of Trackers, and so nicknamed because he guided the trackers, gave them what they needed, and could interpret the Screen faster than anyone in the unit.
Studying all aspects of the afterlife, divination and traditional beliefs that, for centuries, had been deemed occult, had given Mike a range of tools necessary to interpret the symbols and figures on the Screen. Things that a computer's algorithm couldn't decipher let alone perceive. His job included inputting that data, after the fact, to improve the system's performance. It was always learning. And he was still learning. The untapped knowledge on his doorstep in southern Africa was a continual source for honing his skills, and no amount of online reading and searching could replace face-to-face experiences with the people out in the dry Kalahari or the slippery peaks of the Drakensberg mountains.
The Screen continually moved, changed, transformed and mapped. The Universe on a screen — it always impressed him. The Universe at his fingertips. Others saw the Screen as moving through time. That was limited thinking. He simply saw it as changing. Timeless. Unfortunately, the streaks of grey along his temples argued otherwise.
His breathing deepened, air filled his lungs, and he lost himself in the huge screen: fifteen metres of one-millimetre-thick fibre optic suspended from an eight-metre-high ceiling. The soft yellow halo around its edges glowed with the energy that it drew from the surrounding air. A pale aura of purple light smoked off from the halo into the dim light of the room, giving the Screen the look of a fluorescent deep-sea creature. Symbols and shapes rippled imperceptibly across the centre of its flat surface. Their meanings darted through his subconscious with lightning-quick intuitions.
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