FROM: ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT
REVIEW: Mothership: Tales From Afrofuturism and Beyond
BY: DON SAKERS
This article was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Edited by Bill Campbell & Edward Austin Hall
Rosarium Publishing, 350 pages, $19.95 (trade paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-9891411-4-7
Genre: Original Anthology
Mothership is billed as presenting “just a part of the changing face of speculative fiction,” and features thirty-nine stories by forty writers of color. Some are familiar names (Tobias Buckell, S.P. Somtow), while others are up-and-comers.
As you might expect from the term “speculative fiction,” not all of these stories are science fiction—there’s fantasy, steampunk, and horror as well. And despite the term “Afrofuturism,” these stories aren’t limited to the concerns of Africa or African-Americans. Frankly, what we have here is simply an anthology of good stories.
Market realities dictate that it’s not enough to have good stories by relatively unfamiliar writers—there has to be a gimmick. In this case, readers need to look past the gimmick at the stories themselves.
Mothership’s keyword is “diversity.” If these stories share anything, it’s that they spring more from the tradition of literary SF than from the Campbell era. To put it in magazine terms, you’d see most of these stories in Asimov’s or Fantasy & Science Fiction before you’d see them in Analog. Not surprising, really—the editors come from academia. Don’t let that deter you.
Among the standouts in this volume are Thaddeus Howze’s “Bludgeon,” a Twilight Zone-ish tale of alien invasion with a surprise ending; Carlos Hernandez’s “The Aphotic Ghost,” in which a father comes to terms with his talented son’s death on Mount Everest; and Nisi Shawl’s “Good Boy,” a parable of virtual reality.
If there’s anything missing from this volume, it’s background on the contributors. Yes, one can always turn to the Internet—but I kept wishing there was an “about the authors” section.
For readers who want to see more diversity in SF, Mothership is definitely worth the price.
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