If Black feminism inspired RJ, which is being considered as an Afro-futurist theory, let’s take a small sample of Afro-futurist fiction to see if RJ is present. I don’t have much time to read fiction, so this whets my appetite. I am now ready to dip into the writing of Octavia E. Butler.
Abstract
The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology is sci-fi stories written by and about Black people. The 18 authors who contributed to this anthology include some notable names in sci-fi and Afro-futurism. The purpose of this book was to create a speculative fictional world called "The City" that is a picture of what life on Earth looks like in 2000 years, if today's humans don't destroy it.
My main takeaways are as follows
Anthologies are an amazing format for creative work and collective economics.
Femme authors 7/8 centered the Black femme perspective in their writing.
Blackness in sci-fi literature is a refreshing and necessary shift, that has yet to flourish in film.
Editor: Milton J. Davis
Overview
The book is organized as 20 short stories, written by different authors. Each chapter tells a completely different story. There was no particular flow to the stories, but each one takes you on a different ride. It seems as though the editor wanted that reading experience.
There were times where I could try to tie the stories together, but since the stories were sourced and curated with a central theme. The stories were imaginative, I could not fathom several different planes where this life exists. The City is a wild Black existence!
Highlights & Synthesis
The editor, Davis, seemed to intentionally select a specific gender mix of representation of his authors and their stories. In a brief analysis, I found that of 18 authors, 8 are gendered as women and the other 10 are men. 7 of 8 women authors centered a femme experience and one centered a queer/asexual cyborg/android experience, as did 2 men authors. The best parts of the book were the stories that featured the Black femme experience or that talked about sexuality! These were highlights because I was curious about how well I could identify themes of reproductive justice within the fiction text.
The character Iset in Kai Leake's "Free Your Mind (Journal of Iset: The Protector)" was an unstoppable character who was pushing and pulling against the forces against her in order to provide and survive. She was an "other mother", cleansed and built her romantic partner, and made decisions for life based on limited information from governing systems. The character Street Moon arrived across several stories in the book. She was also a runner, but a warrior and divisive character due to her commitment to nonconformity. She was also lost in love, like Iset, with storylines that playfully interact with one another. The last story that touched me featured Ife, a healer. She asked that the wounded be in her care, "let the water do its work." I found it interesting that even in 2000 years, there was such degradation and animosity in The City.
The stories in The City make me curious to find- or create- Afro-futurist writing with an intentional lean into womanist and Black feminist narratives. Y'all see how they did Sophia Stewart and the Matrix. Black creativity cannot be silenced. Look at this youtube video from Tin Minute Book Reviews for more specific information on The City! I also found this great list of Black speculative fiction from Chronicles of Harriet.
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