The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022

by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Editor), Eugen Bacon (Editor), Milton Davis (Editor)

This is the follow up to the highly acclaimed 2021 anthology described as containing “some of the most exciting voices, old and new, from Africa and the diaspora, published in the 2020 year.”

The first won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology and was met with widespread critical acclaim from across the world, with the science fiction trade magazine, Locus, calling it a “must read.”

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, who created the first anthology now joins forces with Eugen Bacon, a 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist and Milton Davis, an award-winning Black Speculative fiction writer and editor to introduce readers to an ever more diverse set of writers associated with Africa.

This anthology is more than just a collection of stories; it is a testament to the power of speculative fiction to transcend boundaries and explore new horizons. It is highly recommended for anyone looking to delve into a world where the speculative meets the vibrantly diverse tapestry of African storytelling.

Timely and relevant to today’s world, the set of stories in this book will astonish, shock and amaze the reader while introducing them to a whole new world.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fantasy

372 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2023

About the author

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor, & publisher from Nigeria. He is a Nebula, Nommo, Otherwise and British Fantasy award winner, and a Hugo, Locus, Sturgeon & BSFA finalist. He edited the first ever Year's Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, the Bridging Worlds non-fiction anthology, co-edited Dominion, & the Africa Risen anthology. He founded Jembefola Press and the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

There might be light spoilers!

Short Stories in order of appearance:
1. March Magic – WC Dunlap ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆— USA, the Civil Rights Movements, witchcraft, Martin Luther King and the magic of the Selma to Montgomery Marches in 1965.
2. When She Speaks – Ugochi Agoawike ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆— the story applies flowers as metaphors to describe Maud’s relationship with her wife. Very poetic , but too much purple prose for me.
3. A Sunken Memory – Donovan Hall 🦀🦀🦀🦀☆— a Cyborg and an AI-piloted sub in a dystopian future are searching for lost “mind banks” in the Atlantic Ocean. Something unexpected happens.
4. Make a Memory with Me – Xan van Rooyen ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆— an undetermined near future, selling memories to make a living. Nice ending.
5. Destiny Delayed – Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆— swindling people out of their souls and destinies. Nice resolution, it was ok.
6. Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story – Nalo Hopkinson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️— great story of a world with risen water levels and dramatically changed coastlines. Our female main character is on an adventure.
7. How We Are – Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ ⭐️⭐️⭐️½☆— a girl with a horrible gift. The story grew on me, but the ending was too abrupt and the twist felt forced.
8. Them Doghead Boys – Alex Jennings 🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺— set in contemporary New Orleans. What an interesting love/revenge/werewolf story! His debut novel The Ballad of Perilous Graves sounds tempting.
9. A Pall of Moondust – Nick Wood 🌕🌕🌕½☆— walking on the moon, dealing with trauma. Strange ending.
10. Kaleidoscope – Milton J. Davis 👽👽👽👽☆— nice feel-good story with a benevolent alien and hope for the future.
11. Memories of the Old Sun – Eugen Bacon 🤖🤖☆☆☆— I liked the LGBTQ+ backstory, the biorobot narrative didn’t do it for me.
12. Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition) – Tlotlo Tsamaase 💣☆☆☆☆— I bounced off this one. Gender-based violence is an important topic, but I couldn’t deal with the writing style.
13. It Calls to You – Jamal Hodge ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆— Ancestors, what defines us.
14. The Coward of Umustead – Diwe Anyadu ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆— fun little heist story. People are not always who they seem to be.
15. Old Solomon’s Eyes – Cheryl Ntumy ⭐️⭐️⭐️½☆— a demon takes body parts… not bad.
16. The Travelling Man – Radha Opubor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️— oh wow, what a sad and beautiful story! Eni is loosing her memory. As she ages, she keeps encountering the mysterious Travelling Man.
17. An Arc of Electric Skin – Wole Talabi ⚡️⚡️⚡️☆☆— not for me, didn‘t connect with this electrically charged avenger.
18. A Soul of Small Places – Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo 🧞‍♂️🧞‍♂️🧞‍♂️🧞‍♂️🧞‍♂️— a very well-told story. Senegal, the dangers of being a girl and the cost of fighting back.
19. Barefoot and Midnight – Sheree Renée Thomas 🪾🪾🪾☆☆— Memphis, former slaves, a burning and an unholy rage. Upsetting. It was ok.
20. The Mercy of the Sandsea – Tendai Huchu 🤖🤖🤖🤖☆— Inspired by south-east Africa (best guess), SF on a different world (?), an enhanced ex-soldier, a sandsea, a chase and fight for survival. Unforgivable sin.
21. Deep in the Gardener’s Barrow – Tobi Ogundiran 🌳🌲🌳🌲☆— this made me think of Tolkien and dark German fairytales. Nice.
22. If the Martians Have Magic – P. Djèlí Clark 👽👽👽👽👽— alternate history, War of the Worlds in the past, Martians among us, magic and a voodoo priestess. Good stuff.
23. District to Cervix: The Time Before We Were Born – Tlotlo Tsamaase ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆— I DNFd the other story in this anthology (#12) by the author, so I went into this with trepidation. Gender-identity, interesting, but I didn‘t like the narrative. I skimmed.
24. Like Stars Daring To Shine – Somto Ihezue ☀️☀️☀️☀️☆— life after an apocalyptic volcanic eruption.

Poems in order of appearance:
 1. Child Price – Akua Lezli Hope
 2. Igbo Landing – Akua Lezli Hope
 3. Nyankopoxyican Breath of Fresh Air – Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss
 4. Pigeon Police – Bryant O’Hara
 5. The Drone’s Retort – Bryant O’Hara
 6. The Revenge of Henrietta Lacks – Cecilia Caballero
 7. Tons of Liquid Oxygen Buckle Too Late Under Strain – Eugen Bacon
 8. Strain – Eugen Bacon
 9. and this is how it begins – Gerald Coleman
10. that poor woman – Gerald Coleman
11. That Time Your Best Friend Called You Sissy as a Plate of Àmàlà and Gbẹ̀gìrì Cooked by Your Orí – Ishola Abdulwasiu Ayodele
12. Loving Venus – Jamal Hodge
13. Fracking-lution – Linda D. Addison
14. The Un-Awakened (Octavia E. Butler 1947-2006) – Linda D. Addison
15. Becoming – Miguel O’Mitchell
16. Street Names – Ndaba Sibanda

I mostly skimmed through the poems. I don‘t have good understanding of poems and rarely “get“ and like them. I do better with older, more descriptive poems.

This anthology was ok. Not something that I am likely to pick up again.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having very much enjoyed 2021’s collection, I was pleased to find that The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2022) is equally wide ranging, thought-provoking, and timely as its predecessor — in fact, I might have enjoyed this one even more. Inevitably, with an anthology, some stories stood out for me personally more than others, but there is no filler here and I have no doubt that each reader will find stories that stay with them and new-to-them authors to seek out further works from (I know I have). Some of my favourites included:
—P. Djèlí Clark’s “If the Martians Have Magic” - sci-fi with magic, from one of my absolute favourite fantasy authors.
—Tobi Ugundiran’s “Deep in the Gardener’s Barrow” - eerie, witchy, mysterious.
—Wole Talabi’s “An Arc of Electric Skin - revolution with science fictional aspects.
—Ugochi Agoawike’s “When She Speaks” - poetic, queer, magical.
—Nnamdi Anyadu’s “The Coward of Umustead” - a quiet child who isn’t who isn’t quite who he appears.
—Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s “Destiny Delayed” - an excellent story I already got to enjoy in the collection Between Dystopias (which I recommend!) and was happy to give a re-read.

This installment of The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction includes a section of poems at the end. I don’t feel like I have the critical vocabulary to review poetry well, but I found many of the poems to be impactful and I am glad that the decision was made to include them. I really hope that this wonderful series of anthologies continues!

Content warnings: gun violence, murder, death, sexual assault, rape, slavery, racism, slurs, trauma, genocide, gore, body horror, injury detail

Thank you to NetGalley, Arc Manor, CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, and the editors for providing an ARC in exchange for this review.

[Xan Rooyen]

I am beyond honoured to have my story "Make a Memory with Me" first published by Galaxy's Edge Magazine included in this anthology.

[Aaron McQuiston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speculative fiction is such a broad umbrella that so many categories of story falls under. Anything that is current world adjacent or set in the future, whether post-apocalyptic stories, horror stories, space science fiction, climate change sci-fi, fantasy stories, superhero stories, technology stories, and even magical realism all live in the speculative space. If any story has a world built outside the realms of the current world, whether be in the future or in an alternative timeline, it can be classified as speculative. I love these kinds of stories, and an anthology like The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022 not only fits into these interests, but it also stretches my ideas of what speculative fiction can be.

I recognized a few authors when I decided to read this anthology. Nalo Hopkinson is a legend, I know P. Djeli Clark from Ring Shout and A Master of Djinn, and one of the editors Eugen Bacon has books released on Meerkat Press. The rest of the authors in the collection are new to me. I knew I was going to like the collection, but I did not know I would like it as much as I did.

Like the large umbrella that is speculative fiction, there is a large variety of different types of stories and voices in this collection. With so many different types of stories, there is no way a reader can like them all, but it is pretty close for me. A few of the stories really stick out for me and made me immediately look up and even order some of their books.  “Old Solomon’s Eyes” by Cherly S. Ntumy, about a village that is battling a demon that lives in the sunflower fields,  “Them Doghead Boys” by Alex Jennings, about a street gang and police being found torn to pieces, and “Kaleidoscope” by Milton J Davis, about a Christmas gift from an uncle’s mysterious new girlfriend, are just a few of the great stories in the collection from authors that are now on my reading list.

My favorite stories in the anthology are the two written by Tlotlo Tsamaase. “Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition)” might be one of the best stories I have read in years. The premise is actually a well worn story, dealing with the devil for fame, but the structure, writing, and voice honestly make it so much better than it should be. Tlotlo Tsamaase also has “District To Cervix: The Time Before We Were Born” which is a sci-fi, reincarnation story that proves that she is not just one story, but a fantastic writer that needs a bigger audience. In January, her novel Womb City will be released, and I am already in line for one of the first copies. 

The last section of the anthology is a group of the year’s best speculative poems. I do not know much about poetry, but I do know that many of these poems evoke strong emotions in me. “The Revenge of Henrietta Lacks” by Cecilia Caballero, “Tons of Liquid Oxygen Buckle Too Late Under Strain” by Eugen Bacon, and “That Poor Woman” by Gerald Coleman are powerful and memorable. 

The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022 is one of the surprises of my year. I knew that I would like the anthology, but I did not expect it to be one of the best books I read, and I did not know I would feel so compelled to read more from most of these authors. I hope they continue to release these anthologies. I will preorder next year. 

I received this as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

2.5

I had really enjoyed the 2021 collection, The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction, so I was excited to read the 2022 edition but unfortunately I found most of these stories were misses for me. I did really like a couple of the stories, but most of them were one's I had read previously either in Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, or in Convergence Problems. Some of those loved and repeated stories include:

—Tlotlo Tsamaase’s “Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition)"
—Wole Talabi’s “An Arc of Electric Skin"
—P. Djèlí Clark’s “If the Martians Have Magic”

I also really enjoyed Tobi Ugundiran’s “Deep in the Gardener’s Barrow” and T. L. Huchu's "A Mercy of the Sandsea". Tlotlo Tsamaase's "District to Cervix: The Time Before We Were Born" was also a fascinating exploration of gender and reincarnation. Honestly it made me sad I didn't love xer first full length novel, Womb City, even more.

I did appreciate the inclusion of poetry in this volume and I do think I would have liked this more if I had read some of the entries I liked the most for the first time so I do still recommend this anthology. I look forward to seeing if there is a 2023 version!

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a wide variety of topics, styles and language in the 24 stories in this volume. Some stories evoke African gods and beliefs, others are more centered on the Black experience elsewhere. My main criticism is that many of the stories are so short that I couldn't engage with them fully before they were over. As you might expect with a broad anthology like this, the quality of the craft varies. Some of the more successful stories are the longer ones, like the ones by established authors Nalo Hopkinson and P. Djeli Clark.

There's a wide variation in what qualifies as 'speculative fiction', and this anthology shows some of that range.

[Lisa Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were a lot of great stories in this collection and I was surprised that my favorites were ones by authors who were new to me. The variety is really great, with magic and vengeance and actual sci fi. There were a handful of poems at the end to round out the collection.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fine. I technically haven’t finished it, though I have read many of the short stories, but summer release novels are calling and I didn’t want to impugn this by marking DNF.
Hopefully I don’t forget to return to it.