Paperback, 432 pages
English language
Published Nov. 28, 2018 by Orbit.
How Long 'til Black Future Month? is a collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by American novelist N. K. Jemisin. The book was published in November 2018 by Orbit Books, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. The name of the collection comes from an Afrofuturism essay (not included in the book) that Jemisin wrote in 2013. Four of the 22 stories included in the book had not been previously published; the others, written between 2004 and 2017, had been originally published in speculative fiction magazines and other short story collections. The settings for three of the stories were developed into full-length novels after their original publication: The Killing Moon, The Fifth Season, and The City We Became.
Short stories aren’t really for me as I can’t get attached to any of the characters or plots. But there were some good stories in this (I wish they were longer and more in depth)
The range, the sharp use of language... This is why she has won so many awards.
My favorite surprise in this collection of short stories is just how excellent Jemisin's dialogue can be. Many of my favorite stories were stand-alone and unrelated to the existing novel universes. This is a good read - you're in for a treat.
People tend to say that they just don't like short stories as a format. I think that it's not so much about the format but that most short stories just aren't very good. I've read quite a lot of short stories and most of them I didn't love. However, there have been some that I thoroughly enjoyed. This collection unfortunately didn't contain many good ones. To be frank, I didn't read all of them. Once I had read the first few short stories and didn't connect to them at all, I decided to only read the ones other goodreaders recommended. All in all, I think I must've read about 80 percent, though. Out of those, I only liked
- Valedictorian
- The Evaluators (my favourite)
- Cuisine de Mémoires
- Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows.
Moreover, I expected "How Long 'til Black Future Month" to be mainly science fiction …
People tend to say that they just don't like short stories as a format. I think that it's not so much about the format but that most short stories just aren't very good. I've read quite a lot of short stories and most of them I didn't love. However, there have been some that I thoroughly enjoyed. This collection unfortunately didn't contain many good ones. To be frank, I didn't read all of them. Once I had read the first few short stories and didn't connect to them at all, I decided to only read the ones other goodreaders recommended. All in all, I think I must've read about 80 percent, though. Out of those, I only liked
- Valedictorian
- The Evaluators (my favourite)
- Cuisine de Mémoires
- Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows.
Moreover, I expected "How Long 'til Black Future Month" to be mainly science fiction but found it to be more on the fantasy side.
If you want to get to know N.K. Jemisin's writing, I would recommend "Emergency Skin" instead. It's way better than the short stories that are featured in this book.
I managed to finish six of the stories. Generally too on the nose and yielding to stock themes of science fiction. “Walking Awake” was the most engaging even with all the hand-holding, with allusions to Get Out and TNG’s “Conspiracy”.
N K Jemisin has incredible incredible range. It was really cool to see the stories that had the seeds of her longer work and also stories that had a completely different track than what I'm used to from her. I didn't love them all but the ones I did I really did -- the Evaluators was my favourite.
These are gems. Varied in style and topic, but so good. A couple are trial runs for other worlds she's written about. Others are free standing: horror, humor, fantasy. Or a blend of these.
The first few stories didn't work for me, but I'm glad I stuck it out for "Valedictorian", "The Brides of Heaven" and "The Storyteller's Replacement".
This was an excellent collection of I think 22 short stories by Jemisin, on all sorts of different topics, but all featuring characters of colour. I was expecting a bit more of a SF lean and the majority of stories instead leant more towards fantasy, but there are both in the collection and sometimes the line between the two is blurred ... any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic, after all.
One story appeared to be set in the world of the Broken Earth trilogy, and probably made a lot more sense if you'd read those already, but the rest all appeared to be stand-alone stories that didn't require any other context. Enough were set around New York City to make me suspect that's where Jemisin lives, or once lived, but there are others set in different parts of America and some outside this world entirely. I enjoyed almost …
This was an excellent collection of I think 22 short stories by Jemisin, on all sorts of different topics, but all featuring characters of colour. I was expecting a bit more of a SF lean and the majority of stories instead leant more towards fantasy, but there are both in the collection and sometimes the line between the two is blurred ... any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic, after all.
One story appeared to be set in the world of the Broken Earth trilogy, and probably made a lot more sense if you'd read those already, but the rest all appeared to be stand-alone stories that didn't require any other context. Enough were set around New York City to make me suspect that's where Jemisin lives, or once lived, but there are others set in different parts of America and some outside this world entirely. I enjoyed almost all of them and was very impressed how varied her tone could be from story to story. Highly recommended!
I often struggle with short stories but this collection kept me totally enraptured.
I think N.K. Jemisin might be the best living speculative fiction author
A great mix of dystopia (my favorite), fantasy (which I am reluctant to), slice of life in an altered reality, and some unique stories. I read several more than once and they were all satisfying in their own way.
Wide range of speculative and dramatic stories, standouts were L'Alchimista, The Trojan Girl, Cuisine des Memoires, and On the Banks of the River Lex.
Powerful and grumpy masters of their art! Food like you've never thought of! A great evolution of the Stranger in the Doorwary archetype.
Not a sour note in the collection - so many distinct and original voices and settings. Jemisin is my new favorite!
