2016 Authors of Color Challenge! discussion

My plan for this year is to focus on authors of color in the genres of SF, fantasy, paranormal, and whatever else is weird and fantastic. I wonder if I can hear from others with recommendations, warnings, and reviews?

Those are some of my favorite genres (along with horror), so I plan on reading more (if available) in 2016 by authors I've enjoyed: Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Samuel Delany, Hiromi Goto, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Helen Oyeyemi, Koji Suzuki, Hisae Iwaoka, Laline Paull. I can recommend specific books, if you'd like!

And I have a bunch of authors I'm planning on delving into: Tananarive Due, N. K. Jemisin, Walter Mosley, Nnedi Okorafor, Malinda Lo, Liu Cixin, Larissa Lai, Karen Lord, and probably more.

Oh, and last year I read "Forest of a Thousand Daemons" by D. O. Fagunwa, a mythology-infused classic of Nigerian literature, so I'd recommend that too.

awesome goals

Thanks for the recommendations, Erik. I'm in the middle of my first Octavia Butler right now and loving it. This blog post by Victoria Law also has some good suggestions: https://bitchmedia.org/post/my-2014-c....

Y'all're welcome! I'm lucky in that I've worked at bookstores and now work at my local public library, so I have a bit more breadth at my fingertips. I'm excited about this project!

Awesome lists, guys. I see some of my old favorites up here. Jemisen, Due, Hopkinson, Butler. But I hadn't read any in a few years, until last year when I picked up Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. I didn't love it, but I thought the author is brilliant.

And there are some up and coming writers who are breaking ground. I really want more of that. I'm currently reading The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology. My reactions are mixed.

I'm hit-and-miss with Delany, but he is known for being a challenging writer.

Has anyone read Dexter Palmer? I just brought home "The Dream of Perpetual Motion" from the library to read for this challenge.

I started "Who Fears Death" by Nnedi Okorafor last night and it's quite intriguing (and also intense with its depictions of rape in the beginning). There's a lot of African culture and mythologies in it, which is quite refreshing for a change.

Hmm, "Who Fears Death" is interesting and worth checking out, but it's also problematic and a bit generic. One can definitely tell the author has written lots of young adult fiction, so it has the stereotypical coming-of-age style. I'll probably check out more by the author, but I'm not terribly interested in the other book in the series.

Hey y'all,

I just started reading One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, and it's wonderful. I can't put it down. It's got a classic fantasy feel to it, but with a totally original world. She's written several trilogies, it looks like. Has anyone else read her?