The SF/F Recs Post
Sep. 24th, 2007 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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50books_pocI volunteered to put together a post with some recs and resources for SF/F by authors of colour, so here (finally) goes. Please add your own recs in the comments! Please!
First off, some resources:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala started collecting a list of science fiction/fantasy writers of colour from comments here, and _minxy_ collated it and put it into user-friendly form here (with some added links to various authors' blogs and LJs).
The Carl Brandon Society (the blog in particular) and Afro-Futurism are full of resources, which I've only just started dipping into.
And the Feminist SF Wiki has a handy list of women of colour writing SF here.
The fabulous![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
deadbrowalking tends to focus on discussion of films and TV, but also includes posts about books and comics. If you want to join the comm (rather than just watch it), check out this post first and don't make the mods smite you.
Then, some recs - with the proviso that this is merely a tiny personal sampling of what's out there.
The genre's fortunate enough to have at least three excellent anthologies specifically focused on sf/f by writers of colour:
Dark Matter: A Century Of Speculative Fiction From The African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Warner Books/Aspect Science Fiction, 2000.
Dark Matter: Reading The Bones, edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Warner/Aspect, 2004.
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004.
I can't rec these too highly. I'm a big fan of anthologies anyway as a way to sample a wide range of writers and find out who you might want to read more of; all three are strong collections in themselves, and they do an excellent job of contextualizing the stories and examining the particular uses to which authors of colour have put spec fic (the two Dark Matter collections both contain a number of essays as well as stories).
Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany's names always come up in discussions of sf/f by writers of colour and -- well, there are reasons for that. One is that, as people have pointed out recently, the litany of Butler Delany Barnes becomes a shorthand to convey the impression that the field is more diverse and more welcoming to writers of colour than it really is.
But one of the other reasons is that they are both among the best writers the genre has to offer.
Octavia Butler's best known as a novelist (50books_poc has already got reviews of Patternmaster, Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind). And in the introduction to Bloodchild and Other Stories (Seven Stories Press, 1996) she insists, "The truth is, I hate short story writing."
But despite that, it's an astonishing collection, containing the novella "Bloodchild" (which she gleefully described as her "pregnant man story", and which is probably the ultimate statement on that particular SF trope), four other stories (including "The Evening And The Morning And The Night", which blew my head off when I read it in its original magazine publication), and two essays discussing her development as a writer and giving concise advice on writing for publication. You can't get much better value in one slim little book.
Delany ... I have to pick one? *whines*
As my username indicates, I am a Delany fan. I love his early space operas (such as Babel-17, from whence I stole my handle), and they may be the most accessible place to start. And Triton has wonderfully snarky things to say about gender and bad faith, and if I'm allowed to veer into non-fic for a moment here then About Writing is an astonishing guide to craft.
But if I had to pick one, it'd (probably) be Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand. It's half of an unfinished diptych, with an unresolved plot (in so far as it has a plot at all). And it's dense and rich and fabulously alien and provocative (the trick that Delany pulls with pronouns in one of his cultures is a mind-expanding joy).
... and here I am reduced to flailing my hands about and saying: the evelmi! the Dyeths! Small Maxa! the hunting! Read it! It occupies an honoured place among the books which contain worlds I'd like to move into and inhabit for a while.
Among more recent work, Ted Chiang's Stories Of Your Life and others (Tor, 2002) is one of the strongest collections to hit the genre in decades. During the run-up to this year's Hugo awards, someone was ruefully saying that if you're up against Ted Chiang in any short story category, you know that you're not even in the running. This is brilliant work that's all about the ideas, each story taking a concept and wringing the possible implications out of it.
By contrast, Tobias Buckell is all about the novel-length swashbuckling; he's described Crystal Rain as his "Caribbean steampunk" novel and Ragamuffin as his "Caribbean space opera". These are rip-roaring fun reads (check out the50books_poc write-ups here and here). And I still think that any book with a spaceship called Cornell West deserves love for that alone.
There are also a number of writers of colour whose work is being marketed as literary fiction and/or slipstream but who are incorporating sf/f techniques and themes.
I've already raved about Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist (Granta, 1999), which has been one of my happiest discoveries so far, so I'll just point you in the direction of my write-up.
Also not being marketed as sf is Ruchir Joshi's The Last Jet Engine Laugh (Flamingo, 2002) - despite the fact that large portions of it are set in a dystopic 2030 (which, last time I checked the calendar, we hadn't yet reached).
It weaves back and forth across time periods, memories and anecdotes nested within one another, from the courtship of photographer Paresh Bhatt's parents as they meet during the struggle for Indian independence from the British, through into futuristic warfare, as his daughter Para leads a fighter pilot squadron against a US-supported alliance between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I'm still processing it; it's epic and personal, funny and shocking, wistfully political, gleefully scatological (a la Martin Amis), and beautifully-written.
Okay. *flexes typing fingers*
If that's not enough to provide a few leads, I don't know what will be *g*.
Now, hit me with your best recs!
First off, some resources:
matociquala started collecting a list of science fiction/fantasy writers of colour from comments here, and _minxy_ collated it and put it into user-friendly form here (with some added links to various authors' blogs and LJs).The Carl Brandon Society (the blog in particular) and Afro-Futurism are full of resources, which I've only just started dipping into.
And the Feminist SF Wiki has a handy list of women of colour writing SF here.
The fabulous
deadbrowalking tends to focus on discussion of films and TV, but also includes posts about books and comics. If you want to join the comm (rather than just watch it), check out this post first and don't make the mods smite you.Then, some recs - with the proviso that this is merely a tiny personal sampling of what's out there.
The genre's fortunate enough to have at least three excellent anthologies specifically focused on sf/f by writers of colour:
Dark Matter: A Century Of Speculative Fiction From The African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Warner Books/Aspect Science Fiction, 2000.
Dark Matter: Reading The Bones, edited by Sheree R. Thomas, Warner/Aspect, 2004.
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004.
I can't rec these too highly. I'm a big fan of anthologies anyway as a way to sample a wide range of writers and find out who you might want to read more of; all three are strong collections in themselves, and they do an excellent job of contextualizing the stories and examining the particular uses to which authors of colour have put spec fic (the two Dark Matter collections both contain a number of essays as well as stories).
Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany's names always come up in discussions of sf/f by writers of colour and -- well, there are reasons for that. One is that, as people have pointed out recently, the litany of Butler Delany Barnes becomes a shorthand to convey the impression that the field is more diverse and more welcoming to writers of colour than it really is.
But one of the other reasons is that they are both among the best writers the genre has to offer.
Octavia Butler's best known as a novelist (
50books_poc has already got reviews of Patternmaster, Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind). And in the introduction to Bloodchild and Other Stories (Seven Stories Press, 1996) she insists, "The truth is, I hate short story writing." But despite that, it's an astonishing collection, containing the novella "Bloodchild" (which she gleefully described as her "pregnant man story", and which is probably the ultimate statement on that particular SF trope), four other stories (including "The Evening And The Morning And The Night", which blew my head off when I read it in its original magazine publication), and two essays discussing her development as a writer and giving concise advice on writing for publication. You can't get much better value in one slim little book.
Delany ... I have to pick one? *whines*
As my username indicates, I am a Delany fan. I love his early space operas (such as Babel-17, from whence I stole my handle), and they may be the most accessible place to start. And Triton has wonderfully snarky things to say about gender and bad faith, and if I'm allowed to veer into non-fic for a moment here then About Writing is an astonishing guide to craft.
But if I had to pick one, it'd (probably) be Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand. It's half of an unfinished diptych, with an unresolved plot (in so far as it has a plot at all). And it's dense and rich and fabulously alien and provocative (the trick that Delany pulls with pronouns in one of his cultures is a mind-expanding joy).
... and here I am reduced to flailing my hands about and saying: the evelmi! the Dyeths! Small Maxa! the hunting! Read it! It occupies an honoured place among the books which contain worlds I'd like to move into and inhabit for a while.
Among more recent work, Ted Chiang's Stories Of Your Life and others (Tor, 2002) is one of the strongest collections to hit the genre in decades. During the run-up to this year's Hugo awards, someone was ruefully saying that if you're up against Ted Chiang in any short story category, you know that you're not even in the running. This is brilliant work that's all about the ideas, each story taking a concept and wringing the possible implications out of it.
By contrast, Tobias Buckell is all about the novel-length swashbuckling; he's described Crystal Rain as his "Caribbean steampunk" novel and Ragamuffin as his "Caribbean space opera". These are rip-roaring fun reads (check out the
50books_poc write-ups here and here). And I still think that any book with a spaceship called Cornell West deserves love for that alone.There are also a number of writers of colour whose work is being marketed as literary fiction and/or slipstream but who are incorporating sf/f techniques and themes.
I've already raved about Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist (Granta, 1999), which has been one of my happiest discoveries so far, so I'll just point you in the direction of my write-up.
Also not being marketed as sf is Ruchir Joshi's The Last Jet Engine Laugh (Flamingo, 2002) - despite the fact that large portions of it are set in a dystopic 2030 (which, last time I checked the calendar, we hadn't yet reached).
It weaves back and forth across time periods, memories and anecdotes nested within one another, from the courtship of photographer Paresh Bhatt's parents as they meet during the struggle for Indian independence from the British, through into futuristic warfare, as his daughter Para leads a fighter pilot squadron against a US-supported alliance between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I'm still processing it; it's epic and personal, funny and shocking, wistfully political, gleefully scatological (a la Martin Amis), and beautifully-written.
Okay. *flexes typing fingers*
If that's not enough to provide a few leads, I don't know what will be *g*.
Now, hit me with your best recs!
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 06:09 pm (UTC)Bloodchild turned my brain inside out. I treated that collection as if it was as dangerous as TNT, carefully giving myself months between stories to let my brain recover.
Thanks for the accessibility tip on Delaney -- I've read some of his shorts, but have never successfully clawed my way inside one of his novels. (Can't. Get. Traction!) FWIW, his graphic-novel-memoir Bread and Wine is awesome.
I'm reading Imaro right now. I'm enjoying it, but not in love -- but then, sword and scorcery has never been one of my speaks-to-my-heart subgenres.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 06:27 pm (UTC)*g* Maybe try Babel-17, then. Gaudy glittering linguistic polyamorous 1960s space opera fun! With a female cryptographer/linguist/poet hero!
(Which is why I succumbed to the impulse to steal her name as my username; I was studying philosophy of language about the time I discovered internet bulletin boards. Also, it helps lure out any other Delany fans around.)
Oh, and his autobiography of his early life as a writer, The Motion Of Light In Water, is also very awesome.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:27 pm (UTC):: I've read some of his shorts, but have never successfully clawed my way inside one of his novels. ::
...sounds quite dirty. ;-)
Thanks for the rec!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 03:37 am (UTC)Me too. It's also not one of my sure-fire kinks, but I'm trying so hard to finish it.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 05:52 pm (UTC)I liked the book! I just don't know if I should review it here or not.
(and I already have two of the books on your list, so I am glad to know I'm likely to enjoy them ;))
no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 06:05 pm (UTC)I already have two of the books on your list
Oooh, which ones?
no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 06:45 pm (UTC)'Crystal Rain' and 'Stories of My Life', which I've been wanting since I read the title story ages ago. I can't wait to read it. I've also read one of Barnes' recently, 'Iron Shadows'. I will write it up at some point, but I can't especially recommend it. I've read several of Butler's but none of the ones you mention -- I liked Parable of the Sower very much, but not so much the sequel. And the Xenogenesis series, a library borrowing years ago. I recall it rather distressed me. I should re-read it sometime, and see what I think now.
It's sort of depressing to look at my shelves of sf and realise how white they are. But thanks for all the recs, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-29 02:23 pm (UTC)