One of the gifts of reading science fiction and fantasy is that it can show characters in alternate futures, finding paths of change and resistance in terrible circumstances. It can also imagine new worlds or work through the problems of the past by imagining different outcomes by creating fantastical elements. It can use elements of all these examples to create a genre-mashing, mind-blowing world for the reader to discover. In this list you will find several examples of Black writers doing all of these things and more, creating futures where they are the main character and giving power to past struggles that still affect our lives today.
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An underwater society founded by pregnant African slave women thrown overboard from slave ships survives their traumatic history by putting their societal memory into one chosen person – the Historian. Yetu, the new Historian, can’t take the pain and flees her world, and in doing so changes it permanently. This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on OverDrive/Libby and an eAudio on Overdrive/Libby.
Earth in 2050, deserted by the privileged who fled to space colonies, now occupied by humans left to scavenge what they can from the wreckage of society while the colonies come down to grab the choice building materials. These are the stories of those left behind, trying to create meaning and a sense of home in a confusing and hostile world, surviving by not giving up on humor, hope, humanity and even love.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on OverDrive/Libby and in eAudio on Overdrive/Libby.
The first short story collection by three-time Hugo award-winning Jemisin is a thrilling, impassioned introduction to her magical worlds infused with social commentary. Many stories feature characters resisting the powers that try to control them, from parasitic aliens to sinister faeries in the Jim Crow South.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudiobook on OverDrive/Libby.
The U.S. Virgin Islands has been living with the Ynaa for five years, an alien race whose ship came to rest over their homeland. It is an uneasy relationship as the Ynaa can react to events with terrible violence and anger. The death of a boy caused by one of the aliens is the catalyst of a conflict that has far reaching consequences.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on OverDrive/Libby, an eBook on Hoopla and in eAudio on Hoopla.
Powerhouse creative Janelle Monaé brings the world of their Dirty Computer album and emotion picture to the page with collaborators who are superstar writers in their own right. The result is a collection of stories following one Jane 57821 who escapes her dystopian captors to find freedom and love and recapture her memories.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on OverDrive/Libby and in eAudio on Overdrive/Libby.
Touraine has only ever known life as a soldier. She was stolen as a child and raised to be loyal to the empire. When she is sent back to her homeland to help quell a rebellion and meets the rebel Luca, however, she realizes that there are more important things in life than to die for a colonial ideal.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Overdrive/Libby.
Josephine Thomas’s world is one where witchcraft is real enough to find women on trial for being witches. As a Black woman, Josephine is especially worried about the rumors that her mother was a witch. She doesn’t know who her mother was or why she disappeared fourteen years ago, but she needs to find out before the state mandates her marriage at the age of 30 and she loses her personal autonomy.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on OverDrive/Libby and in eAudio on Overdrive/Libby.