The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer

by Janelle Monáe

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

PS3613.O52266

Description

"Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts-as a means of self-conception-could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian existence...and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the traditions of speculative writers such as Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor-and filled with the artistic genius and powerful themes that have made Monáe a worldwide icon in the first place-The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there"--… (more)

Similar in this library

Collection

Your library

Rating

½ (33 ratings; 3.8)

Publication

Harper Voyager (2022), 336 pages

Pages

336

Genres

Physical description

336 p.; 9.5 inches

Awards

Locus Award (Finalist — Collection — 2023)
Ignyte Award (Shortlist — 2023)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Audio (2022)
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
LibraryReads (Monthly Pick — April 2022)

Media reviews

Washington Post
Her Grammy-nominated third album, the joyously vibrant collection of pop bangers “Dirty Computer,” was accompanied by an “emotion picture.” The Hugo Award-nominated short film brought to life the fully formed world around Monáe’s record, introducing audiences to a dystopian near-future
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 surveillance state where queer people, people of color and all who don’t conform are considered “dirty computers” and hunted down to be corrected. It is this world that Monáe builds on in her first book, “The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer,” a collection of short stories that explore the power of memory in liberation.... The Afrofuturist collection feeds both Monáe’s fan base, which will be hungry to delve deeper into her work, and sci-fi fans looking for another book in the burgeoning Black speculative fiction genre.
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— 4 more
USA Today
By reframing aspects of social life and identity, which can often feel convoluted and heavy, in a heightened, dystopian context, Monáe reveals the simplicity of our shared humanity. “The Memory Librarian” shows us the future can be an unnerving reflection of our unexamined vices, but we can
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 also plant the seeds for a brighter tomorrow.
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New York Times
Inspired by the alienation and oppression that artificial intelligence faces in these fictional worlds, Monáe channels her own experiences of estrangement as a queer, working-class Black woman into lush and theatrical songs about love under siege by an invasive state.... “The Memory Librarian”
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 offers five windows into an authoritarian world in which social deviants — almost all of them queer, Black, poor women — are relentlessly hunted and persecuted. The hunters are New Dawn, a nebulous “techno-nationalist” outfit that manages a sprawling surveillance operation.... There’s so little explanation of the basic mechanisms of New Dawn’s rule that the downtrodden main characters are deprived of agency and nuance. Their domestic and internal struggles, though rendered with meticulous attention to queer experiences and concerns, have no meaningful connection to their material circumstances.
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Kirkus Review
In her debut collection, musician and actress Monáe collaborates with a different writer for every story to explore a world defined by some people's resistance to a dangerous surveillance state in which memories are currency.... Studded with references to Monáe's album Dirty Computer (2018), the
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 book is a clever adaptation of music to a new form. Emotionally raw and with a wholehearted love for people, these stories will make readers long to forge deeper human connections by sharing and holding one another's memories. A celebration of queer and Afrofuturist science fiction saluting creativity in difference.
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Publisher's Weekly
In this moving, triumphant collection, singer Monáe returns to the dystopian world of her Dirty Computer concept album and short film. These five sci-fi shorts, each written with a different coauthor, explore the consequences of a totalitarian regime that, in pursuit of a pure society, monitors
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 its citizens’ identities, thoughts, and relationships and scrubs clean the memories and personhoods of those who are labeled deviant.... Though a special treat for Dirty Computer fans, readers won’t need to be familiar with the album to marvel at the big ideas, riveting action, and hopeful message here. This is a knockout.
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LCC

PS3613.O52266

Language

English

ISBN

0063070871 / 9780063070875

More

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