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Description
"Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia's Brood span genres -- sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism -- but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree RenĂ©e Thomas" --… (more)
User reviews
That said, this is an enjoyable collection. The stories are varied in setting, viewpoint, and kind. There's an incipient
The authors include names all sf readers will recognize, like Tananarive Due and Terry Bisson, and people who've never written sf, or even fiction, before. Possibly for that reason, there are a number of stories that I read and thought, that's a set-up for a story I'd like to read the rest of...
Having said that, while there are a number of "beginning, middle, no actual end" pieces, there's nothing here I didn't enjoy. There's nothing here that has that special sense you get when mainstream writers go slumming and assume that "science fiction means it doesn't have to make sense." All the writers here respect their readers and their material. The editors didn't excuse lesser work because they wanted a particular name or a particular theme included. Despite being an anthology with an agenda, there's no pounding the reader over the head, except to the extent that happens with any themed anthology when you read straight through rather than dipping in.
I'll carry away from it a particular fondness for "The Token Superhero," by David Walker, and "The River," by Andrienne Maree Brown.
I've been saying "read" throughout this review; that's a very loose usage. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator's voice is excellent, strong, clear, and expressive.
Recommended.
I received a free copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
The writers are virtually all of color, as are the editors. The tone of the stories is unlike any sci-fi I've read (though it is clearly informed by Octavia Butler, as the name would imply). All the endings are open-ended, beginnings more than endings and questions more than answers.
It's uneven, even more so than short story collections usually are. It's about ideas more than great writing. But if you are a reader of science fiction and you spend a lot of time thinking about justice, I strongly recommend you pick this up.
Favorite stories were "the river" by adrienne maree brown (I really need to read more of her work soon!) and Tananarive Due's essay on Octavia Butler.
I also loved the essays at the end. The one about Star Wars brings up some very good points that we should all probably be thinking about. And the essay about Change in Butler's works put something I'd been noticing and thinking about in coherent and easy to understand terms. It was also fantastic to read about Butler from someone who knew her when she was alive. RIP Octavia, but wherever you are, I hope you know your legacy lives on.