An Earnest Blackness by Eugen Bacon
(Anti-Oedipus Press, 2022)
Reviewed by Phil Nicholls
An Earnest Blackness is the debut collection of 12 non-fiction essays by Eugen Bacon, published by Anti-Oedipus Press, 2022. Her previous work includes three novels, all nominated for BSFA awards. Bacon is a multi-prize-winning author and her creative work has appeared in many magazines.
The opening lines of the first essay set the tone for much of the collection: “Decades after the ground-breaking work of authors such Toni Morrison, Samuel Delaney, and Octavia Butler, black speculative fiction is more visible and thriving than ever.” The heart of this collection is an overview of black speculative fiction, Afrofuturism, AfroSF and even slipstream writing, styles where “We can contemplate different, better futures.” Bacon offers good explorations of these labels across several essays but concedes that “There are problems with definitions.”
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Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.
The Rise Of The Cyberzines by Mike Ashley
(Liverpool University Press, 2022)
Reviewed by Martin Petto
The Rise Of The Cyberzines marks the culmination of a monumental project. When Mike Ashley started this project, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 (2001) was intended to be the first of three volumes. Transformations: 1950 to 1970 (2005) and Gateways to Forever: 1970 to 1980 (2007) duly followed. But so too—after a gap—did Science Fiction Rebels: 1981 to 1990 (2016). And now a final mammoth book covering 1991 to 2020: “This is my final volume covering English-language magazines, in a series over twenty years in the making. A companion volume, No Limits, will explore the development of non-English sf magazines. Beyond that, I pass the baton on to anyone who wishes to continue the story through future decades.”
The result is a book—simultaneously a history of the state of the industry and a review of the state of the field—that is essential yet frustrating. Covering a larger span than any of the previous volumes as well as more fundamental industry upheavals is just too large a task for a single book, particularly one with its genesis in a different task.
Men written and directed by Alex Garland
(A24, 2022)
Reviewed by Josh Pearce
Men is Alex Garland’s third film as director, following two well-regarded science fiction forays (Annihilation and Ex Machina), and he has also written several other SF gems (28 Days Later…, Sunshine, and Dredd). Men, however, is decidedly fantasy. (Garland himself calls it “folk horror.”)
It stars Jessie Buckley as Harper, a recent widow renting a large country house for a couple of weeks as a place to recover from her tragedy. The owner of the house is Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), who gives off enough creepy vibes that when he asks Harper if she plays the piano, she lies and says, “No.” Anything to avoid prolonging being in the same room as him.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Liberation by Anne Toole and Ben Maccaw Art by Elmer Damaso
(Titan Comics, 2022)
Reviewed by John Dodd
(Minor spoilers for the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.)
Novels based on video games fall into two different categories for me, the ones that give us something that we were utterly unaware of, and those that tell a story that expands on something we already knew.
I love the lore of games, particularly in video games where the temptation must surely be to paper over the cracks in the lore with more action and hope that no one notices. The more that time goes on, the more that games designers realise that many are just like me, they want the story, they want all the things that go with it, they want to know everything.
Azimut by Wilfred Lupano Art by Jean-Baptiste Andreae
There was a tale of the time snatcher, who had power over all things, and both gave and took time as it suited them to do. Thought by many to be a legend, a story to frighten children, still the dominion of time holds sway over everyone, and many seek to find a way to escape that inevitability.
It begins with La Perue, out at sea for two years, finding himself upon the beaches of the new world that he has sought for so long, only to find that someone has taken away the ability of the world to navigate without him knowing, and he is instead on the very shores that he departed so long ago, to the amusement of many and the multitude of humiliation that he must endure.
Elric Volume 3: The White Wolf by Julien Blondel and Jean-Luc Cano Art by Julian Telo and Robin Recht
Reviewed by David Lascelles
This graphic novel adaptation of one of Michael Moorcock’s more famous creations, Elric of Melnibone, is certainly a nostalgia trip for someone who, like me, was brought up in the 80s as a lover of all things fantasy and SF. Back then, Elric was a property that was very different to the fantasy offerings of the time. Amidst a lot of Tolkienesque fantasy that swamped the genre at the time, it certainly stood out. From my point of view as a rather sickly teen, I personally loved the idea of a hero who had a debilitating condition that could be managed by magic—albeit a dark and corrupting, soul stealing magic.
So, it was with a certain amount of anticipation that I entered into reading this graphic offering.
Blade Runner: Origins Vol 2: Scrap by K. Perkins, Mellow Brown, Mike Johnson Art by Fernando Dagnino
I’ll go on record as saying that I love all things to do with Bladerunner, from the original films (in all its many forms), to the book and its sequels, to the film sequel and all the lore and mythos that has been built up over time.
This was something I hadn’t yet encountered and that was a very refreshing thing to encounter.
Cal Moreaux (the significance of the name is not lost on me), is a man who has been brought in by the LAPD to assist on a case involving problems with the Nexus 4 model replicants. It quickly becomes apparent that there are issues with the 4’s malfunctioning, with the first one that they encounter going into a recursive loop till their programming comes to the conclusion that it needs to, albeit that no one knows what the conclusion should be.
The Last Legacy by Adrienne Young
(Titan Books, 2022)
Reviewed by Anne F. Wilson
The story starts with our heroine, Bryn Roth, arriving by ship to the Bastian city docks. After the death of her parents fourteen years ago, Bryn has been brought up abroad by her great aunt who has taught her to be ladylike. Now Bryn is eighteen she has been summoned home by her controlling Uncle Henrik to meet the rest of her family, and find her place in it.
The Roth family business is jewellery, or rather, fake gemstones. They also indulge in piracy. They occupy an unfashionable house in a downmarket district. The household is disproportionately male, including, apart from one self-effacing aunt and a female housekeeper, Bryn’s male cousins, her uncles, and a number of craftsmen. Henrik’s ambitions involve using Bryn, who is ladylike and marriageable, to help him join the merchants’ guild, and take a step up the socio-economic ladder.
Chasing Whispers by Eugen Bacon
(Raw Dogs Screaming, 2022)
This collection of 13 Afro-irrealist short stories by Eugen Bacon, an African Australian writer, is published by Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022. The book includes a short introduction by American novelist and critic D. Harlan Wilson, who sets these stories in context within the current state of black speculative fiction.
A book of short fiction, even one from a single author, is even harder to categorise than a novel. Bacon includes only limited genre elements in many of these stories, but the overall effect is a magical re-imagining of modern life. Chasing Whispers fits neatly within the wider definition of magical realism, if the term can genuinely be applied beyond the work of South American writers.
The Tangleroot Palace & other stories by Marjorie Liu
I really like Monstress in all its volumes, so I was very interested to read the stories that came purely in words, so when The Tangleroot Palace came up for review, I was straight in there.
‘Sympathy for the Bones’ is a tale of magic and death, of family and the things that we must do for them, no matter what it costs us, no matter where it takes us. Most of all, it was about making your own choices, no matter what the family you have will make of them and living with the consequences or delights of those actions.
‘The Briar and the Rose’, a tale of two women, both of them monsters in their own way, but one with far more to quantify them as such. This isn’t just Sleeping Beauty, this is something else entirely.
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