Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
Editor: Sheree Renee Thomas
Page Count: 427 pages
Publication Date: July 18, 2000
Publisher: Aspect - Warner Books
This anthology's critical and historical importance is indisputable. But that's not why it will prove to be the best anthology of 2000 in both the speculative and the literary fiction fields. It's because the stories are great: entertaining, imaginative, insightful, sharply characterized, and beautifully written. The earliest story in Dark Matter is acclaimed literary author Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Goophered Grapevine" (1887), in which an aging ex-slave tells a chilling tale of cursed land to a white Northerner buying a Southern plantation. In "The Comet" (1920), W.E.B. Du Bois portrays the rich white woman and the poor black man who may be the only survivors of an astronomical near-miss. In George S. Schuyler's "Black No More" (1931), an excerpt from the satirical novel of the same name, an African American scientist invents a machine that can turn blacks white. More recent reprints include science fiction master Samuel R. Delany's Nebula Award-winning "Aye, and Gomorrah..." (1967), which delineates the socio-sexual effects of asexual astronauts; Charles R. Saunders's heroic fantasy "Gimmile's Songs" (1984), in which a woman warrior encounters a singer with a frightening, compelling magic in ancient West Africa; MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Octavia E. Butler's powerful "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987), in which the cure for cancer creates a terrifying new disease of compulsive self-mutilation; and Derrick Bell's angry, riveting "The Space Traders" (1992), in which aliens offer to trade their advanced technology to the U.S. in exchange for its black population. Other reprints include "Ark of Bones" (1974) by author-poet-folklorist Henry Dumas; "Future Christmas" (1982) by master satirist Ishmael Reed; "Rhythm Travel" (1996) by playwright-poet-critic Amiri Baraka (who has also written as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka); and "The African Origins of UFOs" (2000) by London-based West Indian author Anthony Joseph.
Dark Matter II: Reading the Bones
Editor: Sheree Renee Thomas
Publication Date: February 1, 2005
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Aspect
After the spectacular Dark Matter (2000), Thomas offers something of a mixed bag in her second anthology of speculative fiction from the African diaspora. Of the stories set during the days of slavery, ihsan bracy's "ibo landing" proves that stylization of subject matter can be more powerful than historical fidelity. The shimmering, brutal outlines created by such simple sentences as "each in their own way understood the distance. they would never again be home" stay with the reader for a long time. By contrast, the weight of research muffles the emotional impact of a story like Cherene Sherrard's "The Quality of Sand." Similarly, Charles R. Sanders's "Yahimba's Choice" seems written by an anthropologist studying a distant culture, the story unable to move past surface ritual and wooden dialogue. The strongest entry is Kuni Ibura Salaam's "Desire," an experimental retelling of a folktale that's wonderfully fresh, with exquisite detail: "Quashe's back formed one gleaming stretch of reptile skin. Her torso, neck, and arms were honey-amber, human-soft skin moist with river dew." This story will probably appear in at least one year's best collection. Other stories of note include Pam Noles's "Whipping Boy" and Tananarive Due's "Aftermoon."
