Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
Paperback, 285 pages
English language
Published March 15, 2015 by AK Press.
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.
Just like any other short story collection, some of these stories were better than others, but as a collected whole this was a great read.
Wide ranging anthology, fantastical and superhero and alternate history and time travel, on various aspects of oppression and justice. A lot of these read as abrupt prologue rather than tight short story, however.
It is really difficult to rate a collection of short stories from different authors. I liked some, others not so much. What I love most of all is the idea of having a lot of people who work on social justice issues pause organizing and start imagining. But I was somewhat disappointed with how post apocalyptic everything was. Warnings are good and necessary. But we also need to all be thinking beyond what the last people living under ground might do after the world is destroyed. We need things to go toward. Some inspiration. Some hope of a world I would actually stick around for. Anything else is just too small. Basic survival of the species is not getting me out of bed in the morning.
