Fables & Spells

The 70 short stories and poems that make up Brown’s phenomenal debut collection (after the novella Grievers) explore social justice through an Afrofuturist lens. The universally powerful pieces are arranged in five thematically linked sections. The standout of “Emergence” is “The River,” a short story about a future Detroit where nature itself halts misguided gentrification. “Celestial Bodies” groups poems about the moon with the sci-fi short “The Virgoan,” which takes the form of messages written to humans from kindly extraterrestrial beings. In the section “Grief & Endings,” Brown offers emotional tributes to the tragic deaths of Jordan Davis, Oluwatoyin Salau, and George Floyd, among others. “I’m Rare,” in the section “Love,” takes readers a century into the future as one woman comes out of a new pandemic stronger, with a hybrid mechanical body and a newfound eternal lover. The final section, “Liberation”—which includes “Black August Haikus,” a series of poems “honoring Black revolutionaries who have given their lives to the struggle for Black liberation”—sends things out on a hopeful note. It’s a masterful mix of genre and form that showcases Brown’s range and skill. This should be required reading for anyone looking for Black feminist speculative literature. (Nov.)