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 usual...

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 t...

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

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 bu...

An 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 read...

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 rep...

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 substant...

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.

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 findI'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 som...

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 a...

“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

This 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

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!

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!

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.Tobia...

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.

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...

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 asha...

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 rea...

“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.