Dhalgren: Samuel Delany, afrofuturism, & black SF

"In the two decades that preceded the original publication of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, Forty-second Street, then the most infamous street in America, was being remade into a sanitized tourist haven. In the forced disappearance of porn theaters, peep shows, and street hustlers to make room for a Disney store, a children’s theater, and large, neon-lit cafes, Samuel R. Delany saw a disappearance, not only of the old Times Square, but of the complex social relationships that developed there. Samuel R. Delany bore witness to the dismantling of the institutions that promoted points of contact between people of different classes and races in a public space, and in this hybrid text, argues for the necessity of public restrooms and tree-filled parks to a city's physical and psychological landscape. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr that traces the importance and continued resonances of Samuel R. Delany’s groundbreaking Times Square Red, Times Square Blue."

In this year’s Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, a robot will struggle to make friends, a team of auditors determines the financial value of a lifetime, an alien species will teach you how to read, and maybe, just maybe, someone will finally do something about the kid in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Omelas hole. From the joyous to the terrifying, to the heart wrenching and the absurd, these stories encourage you to open your mind and, as Okorafor promises: “Watch your world expand.”

"Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy."

"These are all horror stories, though some of them are science fiction too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early." --Cory Doctorow

Born in New York City on November 27, 1942, Marilyn Hacker was the only child of a working-class Jewish couple, each the first in their families to attend college. Hacker attended the Bronx High School of Science before enrolling at New York University, where she received a BA in Romance languages in 1964. She was married to writer Samuel Delany for a time, and they have a daughter.

credit: Alex Woodward, via Arika, Edinburgh and Tramway, Glasgow

With an essay by Samuel Delany.

We Who Are About To, by Joanna Russ. intro by Samuel Delany (different printings of this book have intros written by different people).

This bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. A woman attends her mother’s latest resurrection, only to encounter family she’s never met. A postdoc instructor navigates an almost-life in an Elsewhere realm of safety and comfort. After social collapse, a former sex worker leaves her precarious station, and her memories, behind. A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. In lyrical fragments, a young nanny accepts a job with a peculiar employer. A medium is tasked with summoning a spirit that hits too close to home. And two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice. These breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire—all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures.

What is Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers? It is the #1 post-reality generation device approved for home use. It will prepare you to travel from multiverse to multiverse. No experience is required! Choose from twenty-five preset post-realities! Rejoice at obstacles unquestionably bested and conflicts efficiently resolved. Bring denouement to your drama with THE FOOLPROOF AUGMENTATION DEVICE FOR OUR CONTEMPORARY UTOPIA."

The film shattered expectations and social norms at the time of its release. But how does its presentation of queerness—not to mention its portrayals of murder, manipulation, consent violation, and cannibalism—hold up today? The essays in Absolute Pleasure—by queer writers including Sarah Gailey, Grace Lavery, and Magdalene Visaggio—explore the film's complicated legacy, along with queer and trans joy, sexuality, family, generational understandings of queerness, and what we do with our problematic faves.

“Caldwell’s writing is something I’ve long appreciated. It’s evocative, vivid, sometimes humorous, and wonderfully queer and Black. He’s very, very good at worldbuilding in inventive and dramatic ways. His characters are the kind we don’t often get in fiction, and that makes the stories all the more special.” —Alex Brown, Punk-Ass Book Jockey