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Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond is a groundbreaking speculative fiction anthology that showcases the work from some of the most talented writers inside and outside speculative fiction across the globe—including Junot Diaz, Victor LaValle, Lauren Beukes, N. K. Jemisin, Rabih Alameddine, S. P. Somtow, and more. These authors have earned such literary honors as the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker, among others.
366 pages, Paperback
First published September 11, 2013
124 people are currently reading
4024 people want to read
About the author
Bill Campbell
62 books207 followersBill Campbell is a native Pittsburgher. Throughout his varied and illustrious career, he has done everything from assembling Christmas toys in Cleveland; loading trucks, bookkeeping, and being an AmeriCorps volunteer in Atlanta; coordinating an elementary school literacy program in D.C. to teaching English as a second language in the Czech Republic. He's also the former publisher of the independent magazine, Contraband, and the music trade magazine, CD Revolutions.
Bill came out with Sunshine Patriots, a semi-satirical, military sf novel, back in 2004. My Booty Novel, which he likes to call "fluff for nerds," came out in 2007. His new book, Pop Culture: Politics, Puns, and "Poohbutt" from a Liberal Stay-at-Home Dad was released in September, 2010.
Bill lives in Washington, DC, where he has worked as a music critic for www.ink19.com and currently works for a company that produces books for the blind for the Library of Congress.
Bill came out with Sunshine Patriots, a semi-satirical, military sf novel, back in 2004. My Booty Novel, which he likes to call "fluff for nerds," came out in 2007. His new book, Pop Culture: Politics, Puns, and "Poohbutt" from a Liberal Stay-at-Home Dad was released in September, 2010.
Bill lives in Washington, DC, where he has worked as a music critic for www.ink19.com and currently works for a company that produces books for the blind for the Library of Congress.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
May 6, 2018
“They call those of us who made it through “time witnesses.” I can think of a couple of better terms.”
I know that this isn’t huge shocking news, but I’m a word junky. So, I hate it that this project didn’t make it as a book, but maybe its better as a short story. Horror is like that sometimes.
The outbreak:
“Within a month, a couple of thousand more infections were reported. Didn’t rip through the pobla like the dengues or the poxes. More of a slow leprous spread. A black mold-fungus-blast that came on like a splotch and then gradually started taking you over, tunnelling right through you—though as it turned out it wasn’t a mold-fungus-blast at all. It was something else. Something new.
Everybody blamed the heat. Blamed the Calientazo. Shit, a hundred straight days over 105 degrees F. in our region alone, the planet cooking like a chimi and down to its last five trees—something berserk was bound to happen. All sorts of bizarre outbreaks already in play: diseases no one had names for, zoonotics by the pound. This one didn’t cause too much panic because it seemed to hit only the sickest of the sick, viktims who had nine kinds of ill already in them. You literally had to be falling to pieces for it to grab you.”
“A huge rah-rah, but when the experts determined that it wasn’t communicable in the standard ways, and that normal immune systems appeared to be at no kind of risk, the renminbi and the attention and the savvy went elsewhere. And since it was just poor Haitian types getting fucked up—no real margin in that.”
His friend from school:
“On top of that we were both art types, which in our world of hyper-capitalism was like having a serious mental disorder.”
“Took me over to the rooftop apartment his dad had given him in the rebuilt Zona Colonial. The joint was a meta-glass palace that overlooked the Drowned Sectors, full of his photographs and all the bric-a-brac he had collected for props, with an outdoor deck as large as an aircraft carrier.
You live here? I said, and he shrugged lazily: Until Papi decides to sell the building.”
The friend’s friends:
“We drank some more spike, and some of his too-cool-for-school Dome friends came over, slim, tall, and wealthy, every one doing double takes when they saw the size of me and heard my Dark accent, but Alex introduced me as his Brown classmate. A genius, he said, and that made it a little better. What do you do? they asked and I told them I was trying to be a journalist. Which for that set was like saying I wanted to molest animals. I quickly became part of the furniture, one of Alex’s least interesting fotos. Don’t you love my friends, Alex said. Son tan amable.”
The girl:
“That girl. With one fucking glance she upended my everything.
So you’re the friend? I’m Mysty. Her crafted eyes giving me the once-over. And you’re in this country voluntarily?
A ridiculously beautiful mina wafting up a metal corkscrew staircase in highheels and offering up her perfect cheek as the light from the Dome was dying out across the city—that I could have withstood. But then she spent the rest of the night ribbing me because I was so Americanized, because my Spanish sucked, because I didn’t know any of the Island things they were talking about—and that was it for me. I was lost.”
My concern:
When we have another Carrington Event, how will I find out what happened?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_s...
Available at:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
and
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/wp-...
I know that this isn’t huge shocking news, but I’m a word junky. So, I hate it that this project didn’t make it as a book, but maybe its better as a short story. Horror is like that sometimes.
The outbreak:
“Within a month, a couple of thousand more infections were reported. Didn’t rip through the pobla like the dengues or the poxes. More of a slow leprous spread. A black mold-fungus-blast that came on like a splotch and then gradually started taking you over, tunnelling right through you—though as it turned out it wasn’t a mold-fungus-blast at all. It was something else. Something new.
Everybody blamed the heat. Blamed the Calientazo. Shit, a hundred straight days over 105 degrees F. in our region alone, the planet cooking like a chimi and down to its last five trees—something berserk was bound to happen. All sorts of bizarre outbreaks already in play: diseases no one had names for, zoonotics by the pound. This one didn’t cause too much panic because it seemed to hit only the sickest of the sick, viktims who had nine kinds of ill already in them. You literally had to be falling to pieces for it to grab you.”
“A huge rah-rah, but when the experts determined that it wasn’t communicable in the standard ways, and that normal immune systems appeared to be at no kind of risk, the renminbi and the attention and the savvy went elsewhere. And since it was just poor Haitian types getting fucked up—no real margin in that.”
His friend from school:
“On top of that we were both art types, which in our world of hyper-capitalism was like having a serious mental disorder.”
“Took me over to the rooftop apartment his dad had given him in the rebuilt Zona Colonial. The joint was a meta-glass palace that overlooked the Drowned Sectors, full of his photographs and all the bric-a-brac he had collected for props, with an outdoor deck as large as an aircraft carrier.
You live here? I said, and he shrugged lazily: Until Papi decides to sell the building.”
The friend’s friends:
“We drank some more spike, and some of his too-cool-for-school Dome friends came over, slim, tall, and wealthy, every one doing double takes when they saw the size of me and heard my Dark accent, but Alex introduced me as his Brown classmate. A genius, he said, and that made it a little better. What do you do? they asked and I told them I was trying to be a journalist. Which for that set was like saying I wanted to molest animals. I quickly became part of the furniture, one of Alex’s least interesting fotos. Don’t you love my friends, Alex said. Son tan amable.”
The girl:
“That girl. With one fucking glance she upended my everything.
So you’re the friend? I’m Mysty. Her crafted eyes giving me the once-over. And you’re in this country voluntarily?
A ridiculously beautiful mina wafting up a metal corkscrew staircase in highheels and offering up her perfect cheek as the light from the Dome was dying out across the city—that I could have withstood. But then she spent the rest of the night ribbing me because I was so Americanized, because my Spanish sucked, because I didn’t know any of the Island things they were talking about—and that was it for me. I was lost.”
My concern:
When we have another Carrington Event, how will I find out what happened?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_s...
Available at:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
and
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/wp-...
November 21, 2016
Four stars instead of 5 only because this is very clearly the first chapter of a novel, not a stand-alone story. The introduction to the story that I read implied that the novel is to-come, but Wikipedia disagrees: "Since 2007, Diaz was reported to be working on another novel, entitled Monstro; however, in June 2015 Diaz stated that he had effectively abandoned that novel."
That's a shame, because I would read the hell out of it.
Two Dominican Brown University students, one a nerdy writer, one a wealthy playboy, and the beautiful but troubled girl that our narrator (the nerd) is obsessed with, all happen to be at home in the DR when a new plague breaks out. The plague's effects are a new and extremely creepy twist on the zombie trope... but I guess we don't get to find out what happens.
That's a shame, because I would read the hell out of it.
Two Dominican Brown University students, one a nerdy writer, one a wealthy playboy, and the beautiful but troubled girl that our narrator (the nerd) is obsessed with, all happen to be at home in the DR when a new plague breaks out. The plague's effects are a new and extremely creepy twist on the zombie trope... but I guess we don't get to find out what happens.
Read
August 13, 2019An anthology of spec fic by and about people of colour--the subtitle focuses on Afrofuturism but there's a lot more in here as well.
There are some really excellent stories in here. The Tade Thompson (god, he's good), Daniel Jose Older, Minister Faust, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Victor LaValle were the standouts for me, but there's plenty of variety in here to suit most tastes in sf/f, from ancient mythology to hard sf and spaceships. A good place to start if you're looking to expand your SFF reading beyond the unbearable whiteness of being.
That said, the SP Somtow story about a Native American in Japan is shocking. The depiction of Japan is a mass of stereotypes and prejudices and if this was meant to be the opinions of the characters, unreliable narrator blah, it really didn't come across that way to me. A massive fail which also literally fridges women. I also skipped the Junot Diaz because I don't need to read abusive men, although this book was published in 2013 so you can't blame the eds for that one. But those two aside, there's much good in here, and plenty of authors to follow up.
There are some really excellent stories in here. The Tade Thompson (god, he's good), Daniel Jose Older, Minister Faust, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Victor LaValle were the standouts for me, but there's plenty of variety in here to suit most tastes in sf/f, from ancient mythology to hard sf and spaceships. A good place to start if you're looking to expand your SFF reading beyond the unbearable whiteness of being.
That said, the SP Somtow story about a Native American in Japan is shocking. The depiction of Japan is a mass of stereotypes and prejudices and if this was meant to be the opinions of the characters, unreliable narrator blah, it really didn't come across that way to me. A massive fail which also literally fridges women. I also skipped the Junot Diaz because I don't need to read abusive men, although this book was published in 2013 so you can't blame the eds for that one. But those two aside, there's much good in here, and plenty of authors to follow up.
June 26, 2018
In recent years I've been making an effort to read more broadly, and my encounters with Octavia E. Butler, Nnedi Okorafor and N.K. Jemisin have brought me into the sphere of Afrofuturism. I'd been yearning to delve deeper so this seemed the perfect find
I'm aware there is much debate about what exactly Afrofuturism is, and the "and Beyond" of this title should have suggested to me that editor Bill Campbell trawls his net widely; there are the kind of thing that I might have expected (although somehow I expected nothing in particular, and thought myself wide open, clearly I carry the cultural baggage of of a certain age and ethnicity and gender and geography and class and experience so the stories that showed a standard SF future but with a Afrocentric slant, or some variant from a past less dominated by European colonialism - or simply from a point of view not rooted in that history.
That would have been plenty to both sate and whet my appetite, but there is more here. It is almost misleading to call this anthology Afrofuturism (if that is the use of a fashionable term for attention, it is forgivable); this is a collection of fictions of inclusion, of voices of groups marginalised in art and culture, their voices and viewpoints. This collection is a shining example of the joy of exploration beyond one's usual boundaries. The standard of the stories is superb (not every single one to my taste, for instance the few ultra-shorts, but I am not really a fan of flash-fiction) and there are a handful of tales that took my breath away - those by Victor LaValle, N.K. Jemisin, Ernest Hogan, S.P. Somtow, Junot Díaz - and I'm sure others I'm leaving off- were the highlights.
One of the joys of anthologies is finding writers I may not have otherwise come across, and this has certainly opened my horizons. It is a perfect illustration of two of my favourite quotes:
"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while." Malorie Blackman
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Neil Gaiman
So read widely. Read people who are not like you. Read people who have different experiences, different histories, different outlooks. Read colour, read gender, read sexuality.
Read difference.
I'm aware there is much debate about what exactly Afrofuturism is, and the "and Beyond" of this title should have suggested to me that editor Bill Campbell trawls his net widely; there are the kind of thing that I might have expected (although somehow I expected nothing in particular, and thought myself wide open, clearly I carry the cultural baggage of of a certain age and ethnicity and gender and geography and class and experience so the stories that showed a standard SF future but with a Afrocentric slant, or some variant from a past less dominated by European colonialism - or simply from a point of view not rooted in that history.
That would have been plenty to both sate and whet my appetite, but there is more here. It is almost misleading to call this anthology Afrofuturism (if that is the use of a fashionable term for attention, it is forgivable); this is a collection of fictions of inclusion, of voices of groups marginalised in art and culture, their voices and viewpoints. This collection is a shining example of the joy of exploration beyond one's usual boundaries. The standard of the stories is superb (not every single one to my taste, for instance the few ultra-shorts, but I am not really a fan of flash-fiction) and there are a handful of tales that took my breath away - those by Victor LaValle, N.K. Jemisin, Ernest Hogan, S.P. Somtow, Junot Díaz - and I'm sure others I'm leaving off- were the highlights.
One of the joys of anthologies is finding writers I may not have otherwise come across, and this has certainly opened my horizons. It is a perfect illustration of two of my favourite quotes:
"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while." Malorie Blackman
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Neil Gaiman
So read widely. Read people who are not like you. Read people who have different experiences, different histories, different outlooks. Read colour, read gender, read sexuality.
Read difference.
October 15, 2014
When I finished reading the first story in Mothership, a little voice in my head said "Was that really the story to start this anthology with? I mean, sure it's got a black protagonist, but is that enough?"
And then the rest of me took a step back, looked horrified, and said: "Have you learned nothing from Pam Noles' essay "Shame"? And from the entire Kaleidoscope project? The story has a black protagonist. That's entirely the point."
And then I sat, aghast at my own white ignorance, and felt ashamed.
And then I kept reading, because that's the obvious way to combat such an attitude and is at least part of the point of this project and why I supported its production.
There's a really wide variety of fiction in this anthology. Some skirt the edge of being 'speculative' (Rabih Alameddine's "The Half-Wall") while others hurtle over the edge and throw themselves at it. I didn't click with every story (Greg Tate's "Angels + Cannibals Unite" really didn't work for me, and nor did Ran Walker's "The Voyeur"), but many of them were absolutely breathtaking.
Nisi Shawl's "Good Boy" - one of the only stories that really qualifies for the 'mothership' appellation by being set in space - is a glorious fun romp.
"The Aphotic Ghost", by Carlos Hernandez, did not go where I was expecting and was utterly absorbing.
SP Somtow's "The Pavilion of Frozen Women" has a wonderful line in bringing together several quite disparate cultures and tying them together into a fairly creepy thriller.
NK Jemisin does intriguing things with the notion of online communities in "Too many yesterdays, not enough tomorrows."
"Life-Pod" is Vandana Singh's haunting reflection on family and identity and connection.
In "Between Islands," Jaymee Goh suggests how different things might have been for the British in colonising Melaka and surrounds with different technology...
Tenea D Johnson's "The Taken" is a profound reflection on contemporary issues and problems stemming from the historical transportation of enslaved African to America... I don't even inhabit the culture that's dealing with it.
One of the intriguing things about this anthology is that it's not focussed on African-American fiction, which I had basically expected thanks to the title's reference to P Funk and Afrofuturism. Instead, there are stories here that draw on Egyptian, Native American, Caribbean (I think? I'm Australian, sorry!!), Japanese and Malaysian (again, I think) traditions and cultures - and those are just the ones that I (think I) could identify. There are definitely others that draw on other Asian cultures (I think there's an Indonesian one?). The author bios don't universally identify where the authors are from, so that doesn't assist in figuring out what might have influenced them... which is not a complaint, by the way, because so what? (in the most prosaic 'fiction is fiction' sense). So it's a really broad understanding of what falls into "Tales from Afrofuturism and beyond" - much more inclusive therefore than, for example, many anthologies of the last few years, let alone decades.
This is an good anthology, period. That it's exploring and accomplishing a particular political aim is icing on the cake.
And then the rest of me took a step back, looked horrified, and said: "Have you learned nothing from Pam Noles' essay "Shame"? And from the entire Kaleidoscope project? The story has a black protagonist. That's entirely the point."
And then I sat, aghast at my own white ignorance, and felt ashamed.
And then I kept reading, because that's the obvious way to combat such an attitude and is at least part of the point of this project and why I supported its production.
There's a really wide variety of fiction in this anthology. Some skirt the edge of being 'speculative' (Rabih Alameddine's "The Half-Wall") while others hurtle over the edge and throw themselves at it. I didn't click with every story (Greg Tate's "Angels + Cannibals Unite" really didn't work for me, and nor did Ran Walker's "The Voyeur"), but many of them were absolutely breathtaking.
Nisi Shawl's "Good Boy" - one of the only stories that really qualifies for the 'mothership' appellation by being set in space - is a glorious fun romp.
"The Aphotic Ghost", by Carlos Hernandez, did not go where I was expecting and was utterly absorbing.
SP Somtow's "The Pavilion of Frozen Women" has a wonderful line in bringing together several quite disparate cultures and tying them together into a fairly creepy thriller.
NK Jemisin does intriguing things with the notion of online communities in "Too many yesterdays, not enough tomorrows."
"Life-Pod" is Vandana Singh's haunting reflection on family and identity and connection.
In "Between Islands," Jaymee Goh suggests how different things might have been for the British in colonising Melaka and surrounds with different technology...
Tenea D Johnson's "The Taken" is a profound reflection on contemporary issues and problems stemming from the historical transportation of enslaved African to America... I don't even inhabit the culture that's dealing with it.
One of the intriguing things about this anthology is that it's not focussed on African-American fiction, which I had basically expected thanks to the title's reference to P Funk and Afrofuturism. Instead, there are stories here that draw on Egyptian, Native American, Caribbean (I think? I'm Australian, sorry!!), Japanese and Malaysian (again, I think) traditions and cultures - and those are just the ones that I (think I) could identify. There are definitely others that draw on other Asian cultures (I think there's an Indonesian one?). The author bios don't universally identify where the authors are from, so that doesn't assist in figuring out what might have influenced them... which is not a complaint, by the way, because so what? (in the most prosaic 'fiction is fiction' sense). So it's a really broad understanding of what falls into "Tales from Afrofuturism and beyond" - much more inclusive therefore than, for example, many anthologies of the last few years, let alone decades.
This is an good anthology, period. That it's exploring and accomplishing a particular political aim is icing on the cake.
Read
October 27, 2016This is a very un-Shira book--often violent and dystopian--but it's high quality for people who are okay with much harsher SFF. However, there were a handful of stories that I did enjoy, such as:
"The Aphotic Ghost" by Carlos Hernandez, in which the MC comes to understand the supernatural and magical elements of the one-night-stand that gave him a son several decades ago. A beautiful and hauntingly soothing story about family and being two things at once, with settings as varied as the ocean and literally Mt. Everest. Latino protagonist, hopeful ending.
"Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows" by NK Jemisin, in which a cataclysm (the book is full of them, but this one was honestly the most creative) has caused reality to fragment so much that anyone who didn't have sufficient human connections is now isolated in their own pocket universe, reliving the same day over and over again like Groundhog Day. The only place time is still linear, for these folks, is online, which is also the only place any of them can still share human contact. This one is a hetero love story and while the ending is ambiguous I choose to believe it's hopeful.
"Bludgeon" by Thaddeus Howze is a story about alien invasion and baseball and the Nature of Humanity, and after a bunch of Asimov-reminiscent humor it packs a hell of a serious punchline. I could also compare it to a Twilight Zone episode. More hopeful ending than I'm making it sound.
"Amma" by Charles R. Saunders is a tragic hetero paranormal romance set in Africa, but the beauty of the story pushed past my usual allergy to unhappy endings. Trigger warning for someone's family dying violently and for discussion of sexual assault.
"Protected Entity" by Daniel José Older. Paranormal noir adventure set in Harlem. The protagonists are a (living) Latino paranormal investigator with a Black partner who happens to be dead and a ghost, and the villain turns out to literally be the ghost of an 18th century slaver, so this is some excellent camp. Very noir ending, in which "good triumphs" but people don't get to maintain their relationships.
"Four Eyes" by Tobias Buckell, set in St. Thomas. This one has to do with restless spirits and the humans who can help other humans who are being plagued by them. Hopeful ending.
"Monstro" by Junot Díaz is about some kind of end-of-the-world event centering in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and I was really impressed with how skillfully he built tension sloooowly over the course of several sequential events. I'm not into cataclysm, again, but this earned a place on my list for amazing language like "a cascade of black hair you could have woven thirty days of nights from" and "with a Stradivarius curve to her back." This was one of those ones where an approachable style and good narration dragged me into the type of story I usually avoid. Trigger warning for mention of child sexual assault in a survivor's past.
Many of the other stories were well-written and totally captivating, holding my interest, but just took me places I didn't want to go, like the lonely undead, or serial murders of women.
This book is without a doubt someone's high-quality sci-fi/paranormal horror jam, but that kind of means it's not mine. It's the kind of book where one of the stories featured tooth fairies that attack children, leaving them screaming from bloody mouths once they've stolen all the teeth. That being said, if you like creepy and often apocalyptic science fiction, this book will give it to you by the caseful, with dozens of stories of incredibly varied settings and time periods.
General warning that it's full of all kinds of triggery subjects and I didn't write them all down as I was reading the book, so unfortunately please do not count on this one specific review for that information, although I did try to note if there were any in the stories I specifically mentioned.
"The Aphotic Ghost" by Carlos Hernandez, in which the MC comes to understand the supernatural and magical elements of the one-night-stand that gave him a son several decades ago. A beautiful and hauntingly soothing story about family and being two things at once, with settings as varied as the ocean and literally Mt. Everest. Latino protagonist, hopeful ending.
"Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows" by NK Jemisin, in which a cataclysm (the book is full of them, but this one was honestly the most creative) has caused reality to fragment so much that anyone who didn't have sufficient human connections is now isolated in their own pocket universe, reliving the same day over and over again like Groundhog Day. The only place time is still linear, for these folks, is online, which is also the only place any of them can still share human contact. This one is a hetero love story and while the ending is ambiguous I choose to believe it's hopeful.
"Bludgeon" by Thaddeus Howze is a story about alien invasion and baseball and the Nature of Humanity, and after a bunch of Asimov-reminiscent humor it packs a hell of a serious punchline. I could also compare it to a Twilight Zone episode. More hopeful ending than I'm making it sound.
"Amma" by Charles R. Saunders is a tragic hetero paranormal romance set in Africa, but the beauty of the story pushed past my usual allergy to unhappy endings. Trigger warning for someone's family dying violently and for discussion of sexual assault.
"Protected Entity" by Daniel José Older. Paranormal noir adventure set in Harlem. The protagonists are a (living) Latino paranormal investigator with a Black partner who happens to be dead and a ghost, and the villain turns out to literally be the ghost of an 18th century slaver, so this is some excellent camp. Very noir ending, in which "good triumphs" but people don't get to maintain their relationships.
"Four Eyes" by Tobias Buckell, set in St. Thomas. This one has to do with restless spirits and the humans who can help other humans who are being plagued by them. Hopeful ending.
"Monstro" by Junot Díaz is about some kind of end-of-the-world event centering in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and I was really impressed with how skillfully he built tension sloooowly over the course of several sequential events. I'm not into cataclysm, again, but this earned a place on my list for amazing language like "a cascade of black hair you could have woven thirty days of nights from" and "with a Stradivarius curve to her back." This was one of those ones where an approachable style and good narration dragged me into the type of story I usually avoid. Trigger warning for mention of child sexual assault in a survivor's past.
Many of the other stories were well-written and totally captivating, holding my interest, but just took me places I didn't want to go, like the lonely undead, or serial murders of women.
This book is without a doubt someone's high-quality sci-fi/paranormal horror jam, but that kind of means it's not mine. It's the kind of book where one of the stories featured tooth fairies that attack children, leaving them screaming from bloody mouths once they've stolen all the teeth. That being said, if you like creepy and often apocalyptic science fiction, this book will give it to you by the caseful, with dozens of stories of incredibly varied settings and time periods.
General warning that it's full of all kinds of triggery subjects and I didn't write them all down as I was reading the book, so unfortunately please do not count on this one specific review for that information, although I did try to note if there were any in the stories I specifically mentioned.
March 5, 2014
In the introduction to Mothership, editors Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall describe their love of science fiction and the process of coming to terms with the absence of people of color in meaningful roles. One need look no further than the monolithic Whiteness of the Star Wars universe with its sinister Orientalist Trade Federation, Gungan minstrel show and lack of voice or official recognition for the Wookie sidekick at the end of Episode IV to see it. The state of SF today is not substantially better, films like The Matrix trilogy aside. It is an issue pervasive throughout speculative fiction. Fantasy continues to focus on mythological versions of Europe that are less ethnically diverse than Europe actually was, and minorities are most commonly exotic foreigners or orcs. Horror is also dominated by a majority male perspective. Minorities and women occupy a limited space, often relegated to villain status or specific non-threatening secondary roles. The half-life of the Black friend in most horror films is relatively short.
Even when there is some effort to change this, by writers who hold a more progressive view of the future and seek to do more than simple tokenism, the overall trend is to add color but in ways that carefully avoid issues of race. When a vision of the future is made color blind, it so often does so by glibly dismissing the issue: the post-racial future somehow has arrived, but as far as how that happened, the large body of SF is silent on the issue. It recalls South Park’s underpants gnomes: stage one, racism and sexism. Stage three, no racism and sexism. There are very few narratives that deal with the difficult transition process, except those displaced into human-alien relations and then either carefully controlled (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was modified the studio after initial screenings to include a less violent and revolutionary ending) or revisionist/apologetic (the heroic White Male saving the indigenes as per Avatar).
When the post-racial future is presented in speculative fiction, if people of color even exist it is nearly always after assimilation into a culture built on the assumptions of contemporary neoliberalism. That is, the subtext almost always suggests that the color of your skin won’t matter in the future as long as everyone is on the same page culturally, with minor exceptions allowed for a hint of flavor. Aesthetic differences such as clothing and food preferences are embraced, as is the occasional cute accent or green sex partner, but meaningfully different perspectives and belief systems are nearly always relegated to alien species that are culturally primitive. You may be welcome as a person of color in the future, but only on terms that the majority can comfortably accept. The stories of Captains Janeway and Sisco are set well away from the cultural core and seat of power. Everyone will ultimately be assimilated, even if the process is less aggressive and intrusive than the Borg invasion.
Yes, there are exceptions. I can name many, but those anecdotes do nothing to counteract the overall historical trend. The base-rates are the base-rates, and the past and present are what they are.
Despite the ongoing ugly and public displays of vitriol and privilege on the internet around the proper place of women and writers of color in speculative fiction, I think there is evidence that we are on the edge of change whether people like it or not. It is not the case that writers of color haven’t been around, but their visibility and influence have been historically constrained. With the international reach of the internet and explosion in small presses, the playing field is tipping in a more inclusive direction, and anthologies by, about, and for people of color are becoming more common. The first that I am aware of (please note, I am not claiming expertise), Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, (Sheree Renée Thomas, ed.) was released in 2000 and followed by Dark Matter: Reading the Bones in 2004. Since the publication of Dark Matter’s first volume, the pace of such publications has increased at an accelerated rate, including Mojo: Conjure Stories edited by Nalo Hopkinson (2003), So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan (2004), Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction edited by Grace L Dillon (2012), AfroSF edited by Ivor Hartmann (2012) and We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad (2013). There are also a number of exciting titles slated for 2014 release (see my recent contribution to SF Signal’s Mind Meld). It suggests that, despite all the grumbling from some who seem to like their speculative fiction white and male, different voices and perspectives are increasingly available. The stories in Mothership reflect this general trend. It includes one reprint from 1978, but most of the reprinted stories date from the late 1990s onward, and about half of the pieces are newly published in this volume. Campbell and Hall have selected forty pieces from an impressive international group of writers. There is some flash fiction, but most appear to be in the 3000 – 5000 word range.
I would offer a note of caution for potential readers who may not know about Afrofuturism as a larger cultural movement. The cover art and introduction to Mothership explicitly evoke the science fiction genre. I confess I was expecting, based on these factors, more stories set in the future. Many, if not most, would be traditionally described as something other than SF: a mix of horror, fantasy, and magical realism. Afrofuturism is a broad cultural movement in music, art, and literature that can be difficult to pin down, and does not need to be defined by me. In a sense, that’s part of the point: it isn’t simply about Black people in spaceships, but a broader examination of the experience and perspective of people influenced by the African Diaspora and colonial legacies. It purposefully does not conform to the standard genre boundaries established by mainstream commercial publishing. The term may conjure visions of Afronauts, but the text itself seems designed to force the reader to not only question the role of race and ethnicity in speculative fiction, but to challenge the preconceptions and systems that shape writing as a process and industry. The aesthetic of the movement is anti-hegemonic and revisionist, and not just about getting a more representative sampling of faces in the same whitewashed stories. Does it matter if it conforms to expectations for what science fiction is? It might from a pure marketing standpoint. But the point for the reader who wants to see a diversity of perspectives is that the anthology shouldn’t conform to your expectations of what it should be. Then it would just be the same stories written by different people, not different stories. There is, however, a risk that some readers will have trouble adjusting when the content doesn’t seem to match their expectation set up by the cover and introduction. They should get over it and enjoy the work.
The stories in the anthology are of high quality overall, but when part of the goal is to open the door to a broad range of styles, you can expect that not all of them will resonate with you equally as a reader. But if a particular piece doesn’t, it won’t be because of bad writing. From a technical aspect, the writing is well-crafted throughout. In terms of the selection and arrangement of the table of contents, the editors are successful in varying the pace, length, and tone in order to keep the overall flow of the anthology smooth but interesting. It is a great read.
Ultimately, the volume introduced me to many writers I did not know, and a lot of narratives that don’t fit the standard model that dominates commercial science fiction in film, television, and publishing. I was honestly expecting more stories that would pull me out of my comfort zone or that pushed boundaries further, but it also gave me a lot to think about. I’ll take all the quality, thought-provoking speculative fiction I can get. Mothership is an unqualified success, both as an effort to promote writers of color and more diverse ideas of what speculative fiction is, and as an effort to edit a volume of great stories.
Fans of horror and dark fiction will find plenty of stories within this volume that will scratch that particular itch.
[Originally published on Hellnotes.com]
Even when there is some effort to change this, by writers who hold a more progressive view of the future and seek to do more than simple tokenism, the overall trend is to add color but in ways that carefully avoid issues of race. When a vision of the future is made color blind, it so often does so by glibly dismissing the issue: the post-racial future somehow has arrived, but as far as how that happened, the large body of SF is silent on the issue. It recalls South Park’s underpants gnomes: stage one, racism and sexism. Stage three, no racism and sexism. There are very few narratives that deal with the difficult transition process, except those displaced into human-alien relations and then either carefully controlled (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was modified the studio after initial screenings to include a less violent and revolutionary ending) or revisionist/apologetic (the heroic White Male saving the indigenes as per Avatar).
When the post-racial future is presented in speculative fiction, if people of color even exist it is nearly always after assimilation into a culture built on the assumptions of contemporary neoliberalism. That is, the subtext almost always suggests that the color of your skin won’t matter in the future as long as everyone is on the same page culturally, with minor exceptions allowed for a hint of flavor. Aesthetic differences such as clothing and food preferences are embraced, as is the occasional cute accent or green sex partner, but meaningfully different perspectives and belief systems are nearly always relegated to alien species that are culturally primitive. You may be welcome as a person of color in the future, but only on terms that the majority can comfortably accept. The stories of Captains Janeway and Sisco are set well away from the cultural core and seat of power. Everyone will ultimately be assimilated, even if the process is less aggressive and intrusive than the Borg invasion.
Yes, there are exceptions. I can name many, but those anecdotes do nothing to counteract the overall historical trend. The base-rates are the base-rates, and the past and present are what they are.
Despite the ongoing ugly and public displays of vitriol and privilege on the internet around the proper place of women and writers of color in speculative fiction, I think there is evidence that we are on the edge of change whether people like it or not. It is not the case that writers of color haven’t been around, but their visibility and influence have been historically constrained. With the international reach of the internet and explosion in small presses, the playing field is tipping in a more inclusive direction, and anthologies by, about, and for people of color are becoming more common. The first that I am aware of (please note, I am not claiming expertise), Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, (Sheree Renée Thomas, ed.) was released in 2000 and followed by Dark Matter: Reading the Bones in 2004. Since the publication of Dark Matter’s first volume, the pace of such publications has increased at an accelerated rate, including Mojo: Conjure Stories edited by Nalo Hopkinson (2003), So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan (2004), Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction edited by Grace L Dillon (2012), AfroSF edited by Ivor Hartmann (2012) and We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad (2013). There are also a number of exciting titles slated for 2014 release (see my recent contribution to SF Signal’s Mind Meld). It suggests that, despite all the grumbling from some who seem to like their speculative fiction white and male, different voices and perspectives are increasingly available. The stories in Mothership reflect this general trend. It includes one reprint from 1978, but most of the reprinted stories date from the late 1990s onward, and about half of the pieces are newly published in this volume. Campbell and Hall have selected forty pieces from an impressive international group of writers. There is some flash fiction, but most appear to be in the 3000 – 5000 word range.
I would offer a note of caution for potential readers who may not know about Afrofuturism as a larger cultural movement. The cover art and introduction to Mothership explicitly evoke the science fiction genre. I confess I was expecting, based on these factors, more stories set in the future. Many, if not most, would be traditionally described as something other than SF: a mix of horror, fantasy, and magical realism. Afrofuturism is a broad cultural movement in music, art, and literature that can be difficult to pin down, and does not need to be defined by me. In a sense, that’s part of the point: it isn’t simply about Black people in spaceships, but a broader examination of the experience and perspective of people influenced by the African Diaspora and colonial legacies. It purposefully does not conform to the standard genre boundaries established by mainstream commercial publishing. The term may conjure visions of Afronauts, but the text itself seems designed to force the reader to not only question the role of race and ethnicity in speculative fiction, but to challenge the preconceptions and systems that shape writing as a process and industry. The aesthetic of the movement is anti-hegemonic and revisionist, and not just about getting a more representative sampling of faces in the same whitewashed stories. Does it matter if it conforms to expectations for what science fiction is? It might from a pure marketing standpoint. But the point for the reader who wants to see a diversity of perspectives is that the anthology shouldn’t conform to your expectations of what it should be. Then it would just be the same stories written by different people, not different stories. There is, however, a risk that some readers will have trouble adjusting when the content doesn’t seem to match their expectation set up by the cover and introduction. They should get over it and enjoy the work.
The stories in the anthology are of high quality overall, but when part of the goal is to open the door to a broad range of styles, you can expect that not all of them will resonate with you equally as a reader. But if a particular piece doesn’t, it won’t be because of bad writing. From a technical aspect, the writing is well-crafted throughout. In terms of the selection and arrangement of the table of contents, the editors are successful in varying the pace, length, and tone in order to keep the overall flow of the anthology smooth but interesting. It is a great read.
Ultimately, the volume introduced me to many writers I did not know, and a lot of narratives that don’t fit the standard model that dominates commercial science fiction in film, television, and publishing. I was honestly expecting more stories that would pull me out of my comfort zone or that pushed boundaries further, but it also gave me a lot to think about. I’ll take all the quality, thought-provoking speculative fiction I can get. Mothership is an unqualified success, both as an effort to promote writers of color and more diverse ideas of what speculative fiction is, and as an effort to edit a volume of great stories.
Fans of horror and dark fiction will find plenty of stories within this volume that will scratch that particular itch.
[Originally published on Hellnotes.com]
March 18, 2014
This was a very hit or miss collection for me. It has a refreshingly wide range of styles, moods, and settings. There are some striking stories here, and very interesting characters and rich worlds to explore. That said, I think some stories would be better suited to novellas or novels than one-shots, as sometimes the complexity and depth of detail can make some of the stories less accessible than others. Still, it's well worth a read, and I hope to see more such projects in the future!
August 9, 2020
42 SHORT STORIES IN 42 DAYS*
DAY 32: Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows by N. K. Jemisin
★
Too many characters, not enough story.
Day 8: I Left My Heart In Skaftafell by Victor LaValle
★★★★
Written in a deceptively light tone, this story about a man pursued by a troll stayed with me long after I finished reading.
*The rules:
– Read one short story a day, every day for six weeks
– Read no more than one story by the same author within any 14-day period
– Deliberately include authors I wouldn't usually read
– Review each story in one sentence or less
Any fresh reading suggestions/recommendations will be gratefully received 📚
DAY 32: Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows by N. K. Jemisin
★
Too many characters, not enough story.
Day 8: I Left My Heart In Skaftafell by Victor LaValle
★★★★
Written in a deceptively light tone, this story about a man pursued by a troll stayed with me long after I finished reading.
*The rules:
– Read one short story a day, every day for six weeks
– Read no more than one story by the same author within any 14-day period
– Deliberately include authors I wouldn't usually read
– Review each story in one sentence or less
Any fresh reading suggestions/recommendations will be gratefully received 📚
August 4, 2019
This anthology is worth reading. It is (too?) long - at least for me - and I didn’t enjoy all the stories but there are some real gems in here. And if you think they are all centred on the experiences of the Afro diaspora, you will get more than you bargained for. This was a refreshing immersion in stories outside the typical white mainstream fare. Enjoy!
December 31, 2013
This is a crowd-funded collection of short stories focused on adding a little color to speculative fiction. Don't expect this to be just a bunch of sci-fi, only with black folks. Actually, don't expect a whole lot of sci-fi at all. There's some, but it's a broader, more varied look at speculative fiction.
There's a bunch of quality work here with a great amount of diversity, diversity of all kinds. I can't think of a real clinker in the bunch.
The only point of disappointment was that I didn't really feel challenged. I'm a white guy from the mild streets of Minnesota's suburbia. I was expecting more of the stories to make me feel uncomfortable, but, with one exception near the end, none of them did.
There's a bunch of quality work here with a great amount of diversity, diversity of all kinds. I can't think of a real clinker in the bunch.
The only point of disappointment was that I didn't really feel challenged. I'm a white guy from the mild streets of Minnesota's suburbia. I was expecting more of the stories to make me feel uncomfortable, but, with one exception near the end, none of them did.
July 11, 2016
If I'm allowed to use the food metaphor for literature, where pulp is fastfood and some literature is high cuisine, this collection is like dining out in an exotic restaurant (ethiopian?), where the table is filled with many dishes, to sample. The joy is in the exotic tastes, the spices, the lingering sensation in the back of your mouth, the knowledge of having a new experience, that leaves you enriched. But also sometimes it can be a bit too spicy for the untrained palate, good in the moment but afterwards you need a glass of milk and some regular food to come back to earth. It's good, but something to consume in small doses and with time in between.
Though I applaud what this collection tries to do: to make available to the reader stories by authors from other cultures, as diverse as possible, to open up their minds, to embrace more diversity, more points of view, more ways of being and telling stories, it was almost too much of that. What I mean is: I read SF and fantasy for the sense of displacement, of new experiences, of stimulating the imagination and longing for far away places and time. But this as a double dose: the out of this world experience of SF and fantasy combined with the displacement of stories set in other cultures, using other idiomes than my own. It created a double remove for me, a western reader. Which I can deal with, but I thought afterwards that it would have been better to read this collection in smaller doses, one or two stories at a time. Also I'm more of a SF-fan in the short story format, and prefer my fantasy in larger novels, and here there were many fantasy, or magical realism, or fringe genre stories, that I found interesting but not really naturally my cup of tea. But it certainly did inspire me to read more stories from outside of my own cultural niche as there is a linguistic and thematical richness to explore there!
Though I applaud what this collection tries to do: to make available to the reader stories by authors from other cultures, as diverse as possible, to open up their minds, to embrace more diversity, more points of view, more ways of being and telling stories, it was almost too much of that. What I mean is: I read SF and fantasy for the sense of displacement, of new experiences, of stimulating the imagination and longing for far away places and time. But this as a double dose: the out of this world experience of SF and fantasy combined with the displacement of stories set in other cultures, using other idiomes than my own. It created a double remove for me, a western reader. Which I can deal with, but I thought afterwards that it would have been better to read this collection in smaller doses, one or two stories at a time. Also I'm more of a SF-fan in the short story format, and prefer my fantasy in larger novels, and here there were many fantasy, or magical realism, or fringe genre stories, that I found interesting but not really naturally my cup of tea. But it certainly did inspire me to read more stories from outside of my own cultural niche as there is a linguistic and thematical richness to explore there!
December 31, 2016
Mothership is not what I was expecting. To be fair, I wasn't entirely clear going into it what sort of stories these would be, though I was assuming mostly sci fi. There is certainly sci fi in here, but there's a lot more as well. I was curious to know more about what "Afrofuturism" is as a genre, and I'm afraid that I left the book without much insight there. As L.E.H. Light wrote in her review, 'Maybe “Speculative Fiction by and about People of Color” or something similar would have better represented the contents.'
Several of the stories were so engaging that I am sure I will be thinking of them in the future, and following their authors, as well.
- Bludgeon by Thaddeus Howze, the nail-biting tale of how Earth's population was saved with baseball
- Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs by Lauren Beukes, a several page windup to a punchline about artists and criticism
- The Runner of n-Vamana by Indrapramit Das, an elegant portrait of an enhanced human testing the limits of her endurance for the sake of the whole human race
- Skin Dragons Talk by Ernest Hogan, a familiar but amusing tale of a man being haunted / helped / coerced by a third party embedded in his skin
Several of the stories were so engaging that I am sure I will be thinking of them in the future, and following their authors, as well.
- Bludgeon by Thaddeus Howze, the nail-biting tale of how Earth's population was saved with baseball
- Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs by Lauren Beukes, a several page windup to a punchline about artists and criticism
- The Runner of n-Vamana by Indrapramit Das, an elegant portrait of an enhanced human testing the limits of her endurance for the sake of the whole human race
- Skin Dragons Talk by Ernest Hogan, a familiar but amusing tale of a man being haunted / helped / coerced by a third party embedded in his skin
July 25, 2017
The best thing about this anthology is that it is filled with a variety of fiction across speculative genres from authors with both complimentary and completely different styles. While I did not like every single story in here, I appreciated all of them as well written and reflective of their author's passion. Mothership is a go to if you want to bathe in black speculative excellence, but it is also simply about the human experience across ethnicities, times, and places. It features works from and about other peoples of color, multi-racial individuals, and seats them all in different contexts. Truthfully this book caught me off guard with its sheer variety because I though it'd be mostly afrofuturism. I'm glad it wasn't after reading because these stories were on fire. This book reflects the fact that blackness or simply being a person of color doesn't have to be divorced from these genres or the raw human experience of existing, of dreaming of different worlds.
From stories evoking Egyptian mythology (this story was awesome, wish it'd been longer) to a murder mystery of magical realism in Japan there's something here for everyone. It's not the sort of book you'd put down even if you scroll through a bit to get to the next thing you like. This book should be on far more reading lists than it is.
From stories evoking Egyptian mythology (this story was awesome, wish it'd been longer) to a murder mystery of magical realism in Japan there's something here for everyone. It's not the sort of book you'd put down even if you scroll through a bit to get to the next thing you like. This book should be on far more reading lists than it is.
October 12, 2013
The diversity in this collection is amazing, with stories set in cultures all over the world (and off-world). They take place in the past, present and future. The authors' styles vary from cultural vignettes to tightly plotted stories to novel excerpts. There were a lot of reprints, but only one I'd read before. Some of my favorites included:
Thaddeus Howze's "Bludgeon", a funny story about an alien invasion and... baseball.
Charles R. Saunders's "Amma", an African myth about a gazelle-woman.
Tobias Buckell's "Four Eyes", about a taxi driver on St. Thomas and the spirit world.
Joseph Bruchac's "Dances with Ghosts", about a Native American veteran living on a reservation. With ghosts.
Daniel José Older's "Protected Entity", a great ghost/detective story set in Harlem.
Lisa Allen-Agostini's "A Fine Specimen", a very personal tale of the Carnival "wining" dance on Trinidad, with an SF twist.
Disclaimer: I have a story in here, too, about a doctor's encounter with a dragon near a Doctors Without Borders camp in Sudan.
Thaddeus Howze's "Bludgeon", a funny story about an alien invasion and... baseball.
Charles R. Saunders's "Amma", an African myth about a gazelle-woman.
Tobias Buckell's "Four Eyes", about a taxi driver on St. Thomas and the spirit world.
Joseph Bruchac's "Dances with Ghosts", about a Native American veteran living on a reservation. With ghosts.
Daniel José Older's "Protected Entity", a great ghost/detective story set in Harlem.
Lisa Allen-Agostini's "A Fine Specimen", a very personal tale of the Carnival "wining" dance on Trinidad, with an SF twist.
Disclaimer: I have a story in here, too, about a doctor's encounter with a dragon near a Doctors Without Borders camp in Sudan.
October 4, 2013
There were more hits than misses, more examples of stories engaging than not, and overall? Probably a GREAT introduction and refutation to the notion that people of color can't write science fiction/fantasy. REALLY enjoyed this volume.
February 3, 2016
Absolutely stellar story collection. I recommend this to anyone who likes spec fic; you will not be disappointed. Many of these are the type of story I will be lying awake thinking about ten years from now.
March 29, 2021
“Hyenas don’t have feeling,” Auntie Fadia said. “Their laughter is only pretense.” “I”
I don't see many short story collections by African origin authors. So I thought I will check out this book when I saw it in a library. It was good.
I don't see many short story collections by African origin authors. So I thought I will check out this book when I saw it in a library. It was good.
June 28, 2017
The stories in Mothership are incredibly diverse. Firstly, each story centers on non-white protagonists/cultures/societies, and the collection includes writing by authors from all over the world, including the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and Native Americans. Secondly, the scope of these stories includes speculative fiction, mystical/magical realism, alternative history, supernatural/fantasy, horror, and futuristic folklore.
As a reader, this collection was refreshing. It was very reassuring to see that so many non-white and non-Western authors, from every background, are writing science fiction, and it is disappointing that most of these authors do not have a mainstream following. On the other hand, it is not clear who the audience of this collection is; for example, I would use this as a resource to share with (probably white) people who do not know of any science fiction writers of colour, but I am not sure if this book appeals to me particularly because of its content. There is no consistent theme throughout.
As a reader, this collection was refreshing. It was very reassuring to see that so many non-white and non-Western authors, from every background, are writing science fiction, and it is disappointing that most of these authors do not have a mainstream following. On the other hand, it is not clear who the audience of this collection is; for example, I would use this as a resource to share with (probably white) people who do not know of any science fiction writers of colour, but I am not sure if this book appeals to me particularly because of its content. There is no consistent theme throughout.
October 25, 2016
This long anthology has a bit of something for every one and a bit of everyone in the pages. While some stories weren't quite my taste I appreciated being able to read them and understand the creativity, personality, and uniqueness of many of these stories. As a person of color this book gave many different types of people who looked like me and those who did not but all were far flung from any stereotypes. From ancient Egyptian myths to far flung space colonies still tied to ancient african and african american folklore this book brings a refreshing and intriguing series of new takes to the genres of science fiction and fantasy. Fabulous read
June 7, 2015
An excellent collection of stories. The breadth is impressive with diversity among the authors, styles, subjects. I didn't love every single story, but there were several that were amazing and it was great to be introduced to new authors whose work I will definitely be following.
June 1, 2025
Not quite sure how to rate this one. Solidly written stories, but most too short or narratively fragmented to really stick with me. Nothing I hated, but nothing I loved. This might say more about my present mental state than the book itself. Kinda wish I'd done this with my short story bookclub so I could have picked it apart more with others.
September 6, 2022
I enjoyed most of the stories in this collection of stories. There were a few that I didn’t think measured up to the rest, but hey, I’m not the editor.
“The Half-Wall”, “The Runner of n-Vamana” and “Monstro” particularly stood out for me. Excellent stories among many other good ones.
“The Half-Wall”, “The Runner of n-Vamana” and “Monstro” particularly stood out for me. Excellent stories among many other good ones.
July 23, 2017
Amazing collection! A wide variety of tales with many gems that go right to the heart of a sense of identity, connection to place and land, and culture of those whose place and identity is torn or traumatized. A good intro to afrofuturism, with post-colonial works well represented, and science fiction (with some fantasy) that comes from a core more interesting and less explored than is often the case. Very thankful to Campbell and Hall for creating this, and to the contributors for their incredible imaginations and willingness to go deep into theme with their own cultural ideas.
I read 24 out of these 40 stories, and began a few others that I chose not to complete. This was most of my reading for the last couple weeks, and a good project for these slow, long days of summer. Below are those I found most interesting, with my favourites indicated by an asterisk. I haven't read works by most of these authors, but I'm excited to do so soon, and would highly recommend others to do the same!
I Left My Heart (Victor LaValle) -3
*Too Many Yesterdays (NK Jemisin) -5
[I love letter-writing! And this is an original and well thought out vision of the end of the world, from a different place than most (or rather, how isn't the point)]
*The Farming of Gods (Ibi Zoboi) -4.5
[so weird, oddly contradictory in some ways, and feels very realistic]
The Half-Wall (Rabih Alameddine) -3
Amma (Charles R Saunders) -3.5
*The Homecoming (Chinelo Onwualu) -3.5
[the perspectives of husband of wife in different kinds of colonizing are quite well-handled]
The Voyeur (Ran Walker) -1.5
*Bio-anger (Kiini Ibura Salaam) -4.5
[this story tackles a lot, perhaps too much for its length, but those ideas it delves into and the narration are fascinating enough to remember and recommend it]
The Runner of n-Vamana (Indrapramit Das) -3.5
*Waking the God of the Mountain (Rochita Loenen-Ruiz) -5
[simple, an understood situation, but conceptualized exactly right, I feel]
*A Brief History of Nonduality Studies (Sofia Samatar) -5
The Parrot's Tale (Anil Menon)-3
Northern Lights (Eden Robinson) -4
One Hundred and Twenty Days (Tade Thompson) -3
The Pillar (Farnoosh Moshiri) -3.5
Fées des Dents (George S Walker) -4
*The Buzzing (Katherena Vermette) -5
[those few pages are used to their fullest, almost crackling with their images]
Note: I don't like alien stories and I'm not a big fan of "monsters" or supernatural creatures (with a few exceptions), and that influences what I read and my opinions on those pieces.
I read 24 out of these 40 stories, and began a few others that I chose not to complete. This was most of my reading for the last couple weeks, and a good project for these slow, long days of summer. Below are those I found most interesting, with my favourites indicated by an asterisk. I haven't read works by most of these authors, but I'm excited to do so soon, and would highly recommend others to do the same!
I Left My Heart (Victor LaValle) -3
*Too Many Yesterdays (NK Jemisin) -5
[I love letter-writing! And this is an original and well thought out vision of the end of the world, from a different place than most (or rather, how isn't the point)]
*The Farming of Gods (Ibi Zoboi) -4.5
[so weird, oddly contradictory in some ways, and feels very realistic]
The Half-Wall (Rabih Alameddine) -3
Amma (Charles R Saunders) -3.5
*The Homecoming (Chinelo Onwualu) -3.5
[the perspectives of husband of wife in different kinds of colonizing are quite well-handled]
The Voyeur (Ran Walker) -1.5
*Bio-anger (Kiini Ibura Salaam) -4.5
[this story tackles a lot, perhaps too much for its length, but those ideas it delves into and the narration are fascinating enough to remember and recommend it]
The Runner of n-Vamana (Indrapramit Das) -3.5
*Waking the God of the Mountain (Rochita Loenen-Ruiz) -5
[simple, an understood situation, but conceptualized exactly right, I feel]
*A Brief History of Nonduality Studies (Sofia Samatar) -5
The Parrot's Tale (Anil Menon)-3
Northern Lights (Eden Robinson) -4
One Hundred and Twenty Days (Tade Thompson) -3
The Pillar (Farnoosh Moshiri) -3.5
Fées des Dents (George S Walker) -4
*The Buzzing (Katherena Vermette) -5
[those few pages are used to their fullest, almost crackling with their images]
Note: I don't like alien stories and I'm not a big fan of "monsters" or supernatural creatures (with a few exceptions), and that influences what I read and my opinions on those pieces.
September 23, 2014
So Mothership is a really excellent collection with a huge number of great stories and a few that weren't as great but were still interesting or entertaining, overall I'm super pleased. It's difficult to describe and review though, because the stories span a really broad variety of sub-genres within the spec-fic umbrella (for those coming new to the party, Mothership is a collection of spec-fic short stories focusing on characters of colour) and analysing the ways those stories and characters interact with the various stoprytelling traditions touched on (e.g. historically colonized populations becoming deep-space colonizers) could be the subject of a whole other book or several. But let's start with some favourites. There are a few takes on "traditional hard sci-fi" topics including maybe my favourite piece in the collection, Vandana Singh's creepy-wistful-evocative "Life-pod", one of several tackling deep-space settlement, and Thaddeus Howze's "Bludgeon", which is not my usual style (or subject, being an alien invasion tale) but wins me over with charm, absurdity and a delicate balance of optimism and cynicism towards human (and alien) nature. There's a bunch of alt-history and alt-world fantasy, and some magic realism-ish stuff that would often get shelved with Serious Lit and never pulled into spec fic at all, which is interesting. There's some cool contemporary and near-future fantasy and scifi, some creeeeepy supernatural horror ("The Pavilion of the Frozen Women" by S.P. Somtow: brrrr), a mecha-pilot adventure mystery (Lauren Beukes' "Unathi Battles the Black Hairballs"), a super creepy story about a doctor taking on tooth fairies and other "spirit creatures" in a Sudanese MSF outpost ("Fées des Dents" by George S. Walker), and the expected proliferation of dystopian futures, most notably "Skin Dragons Talk" by Ernest Hogan and "Bio-Anger" by Kiini Ibura Salaam.
...And now I feel like I've basically just listed most of the book, except I've totally forgotten some awesome ones--wait, the delightfully weird "The Aphotic Ghost" by Carlos Hernandez deserves a mention for being one of those stories that tells the day-to-day human-level version of a fairytale scenario and does it really wel--this is silly. Just, the whole book. I recommend it. Very readable, very high quality, doesn't get repetitive, just really really good. I incurred library fines to finish it, because I didn't want to let it go.
...And now I feel like I've basically just listed most of the book, except I've totally forgotten some awesome ones--wait, the delightfully weird "The Aphotic Ghost" by Carlos Hernandez deserves a mention for being one of those stories that tells the day-to-day human-level version of a fairytale scenario and does it really wel--this is silly. Just, the whole book. I recommend it. Very readable, very high quality, doesn't get repetitive, just really really good. I incurred library fines to finish it, because I didn't want to let it go.
September 28, 2016
So, what to say? I guess I never realized how white science fiction is. I realized early about the man thing and have varied my reading. Some of the sci fi I do read has been from other places, for sure. Speculative fiction writing from non North American writers has always been a plus.
It is not to say that I don't read them but that it is more interesting to layer the other on top of the other of Speculative Fiction. This collection focuses on Afrofuturism which include the diaspora of the Caribbean and NA. There are writers from Asia and other parts as well.
There is some unevenness as anthologies will always have but I feel as if there is less than normal. I have read a few of these authors, Beukes comes to mind instantly, and I am glad to be introduced to a few more.
What is definitely true is that I will seek out Campbell and Hall anthologies. There is a craft to putting together stories in terms of how the book is laid out, the topic chosen and the flow of themes. All of that is apparent here. Reading on the streetcar made it more apparent. Long stories are often followed by a few shorter pieces and this makes it easier to keep reading. Seems like a small thing but it isn't. Might be a weird thing to praise but it gives you a better appreciation for what each piece is trying to do. Some of the pieces seemed like part of a bigger work or universe and when you flip to the back, you can see that the author has this as part of their universe.
It is early and I am rushed but this is an excellently put together anthology that makes me think more of the writers and we must remember that good editors can "tell" good stories too.
It is not to say that I don't read them but that it is more interesting to layer the other on top of the other of Speculative Fiction. This collection focuses on Afrofuturism which include the diaspora of the Caribbean and NA. There are writers from Asia and other parts as well.
There is some unevenness as anthologies will always have but I feel as if there is less than normal. I have read a few of these authors, Beukes comes to mind instantly, and I am glad to be introduced to a few more.
What is definitely true is that I will seek out Campbell and Hall anthologies. There is a craft to putting together stories in terms of how the book is laid out, the topic chosen and the flow of themes. All of that is apparent here. Reading on the streetcar made it more apparent. Long stories are often followed by a few shorter pieces and this makes it easier to keep reading. Seems like a small thing but it isn't. Might be a weird thing to praise but it gives you a better appreciation for what each piece is trying to do. Some of the pieces seemed like part of a bigger work or universe and when you flip to the back, you can see that the author has this as part of their universe.
It is early and I am rushed but this is an excellently put together anthology that makes me think more of the writers and we must remember that good editors can "tell" good stories too.
December 19, 2016
If he'd finished it? It would have been five stars. This looks it could have easily been the best thing he ever wrote - easily! And what do we have to show for over a decade - a decade - of waiting? A handful of short stories from a man now poised more towards a career of literary journalism than one of actually writing literature. It's certainly too soon to call it, but it would be a real shame if at the end of all this Díaz ended up a one-pump chump who never had the chutzpah to let his seeds grow for the light of day. I hope my gut gets proven totally and absolutely wrong on this.
One of the few remaining and most talented voices of the marginalized in contemporary literature and he decided to shut the fuck up.
One of the few remaining and most talented voices of the marginalized in contemporary literature and he decided to shut the fuck up.
May 10, 2017
This was great. I really enjoyed:
I Left My Heart in Skaftafell, Victor Lavalle
Amma, Charles R. Saunders
The Runner of n-Vamana, Indrapramit Das
In the Belly of the Crocodile, Minister Faust
The Buzzing, Katherena Vermette
Monstro, Junot Diaz
The Buzzing, in particular, for as short as it is, Vermette packs a punch with it; I read it at like 0200 and it gave me goosebumps. Lavalle, Saunders, Das and Faust took folktales and/or mythology and really went places; they felt fresh. Amma I liked in particular because I like stories about animals. Monstro was cool. Diaz really did a great job with it. His characters were very complex and relevant and he layered their drama with those of the sci-fi elements expertly.
A little bit for everyone in this. I'd recommend it to anybody.
I Left My Heart in Skaftafell, Victor Lavalle
Amma, Charles R. Saunders
The Runner of n-Vamana, Indrapramit Das
In the Belly of the Crocodile, Minister Faust
The Buzzing, Katherena Vermette
Monstro, Junot Diaz
The Buzzing, in particular, for as short as it is, Vermette packs a punch with it; I read it at like 0200 and it gave me goosebumps. Lavalle, Saunders, Das and Faust took folktales and/or mythology and really went places; they felt fresh. Amma I liked in particular because I like stories about animals. Monstro was cool. Diaz really did a great job with it. His characters were very complex and relevant and he layered their drama with those of the sci-fi elements expertly.
A little bit for everyone in this. I'd recommend it to anybody.
August 12, 2018
This took me forever to read, but through no fault of it's own. Because this is a book of short stories, I had trouble finding momentum to keep going because there isn't continuous momentum through the book. That being said, this is a valuable anthology and something I'd like to see in places like school libraries, where it would really fill a niche of anthologies.
I've rated this five stars because while I can't say I loved every single story in here, there are totally some that five stars in my opinion.
My favorites are as follows;
One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sunlight - Tade Thompson
Fees des Dents - George S. Walker
The Aphotic Ghost - Carlos Hernandez
The Pavilion of Frozen Women - S.P. Somtow
I've rated this five stars because while I can't say I loved every single story in here, there are totally some that five stars in my opinion.
My favorites are as follows;
One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sunlight - Tade Thompson
Fees des Dents - George S. Walker
The Aphotic Ghost - Carlos Hernandez
The Pavilion of Frozen Women - S.P. Somtow
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