The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories

Editor Carrington (Speculative Blackness) sets out to “remind” Black readers and authors that “we have the power to define ourselves and redefine our worlds”—and he succeeds with aplomb. Filled with grandmasters (Nalo Hopkinson), multiple-award winners (N.K. Jemisin), and breakout stars (Phenderson Djèlí Clark, Victor LaValle, Tochi Onyebuchi), this eclectic survey of the latest works in Afrofuturism sprouts fresh fruits from traditional genre motifs. Take LaValle’s “We Travel Spaceways,” for example, which grants unhoused Grimace and trans woman Kim passage to the stars in place of the typical clean-cut space patrollers. Clark’s hidden history of General Washington’s false teeth, “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” illuminates the way those forgotten by the chroniclers of history still exert a great deal of influence. Nevertheless, oppression takes its toll even on those who attempt to collaborate with the ruling classes, as in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” which follows a part-Japanese camp guard and her vampire lover. In these stories, humor can be whimsical, as in Hopkinson’s “Herbal,” about a very literal elephant in the room, or mask the pain of the Omega Question (“Who matters?”), as in Violet Allen’s “The Venus Effect.” This is essential reading. (Feb.)