Stephanie Andrea AllenRezensionen

I received a copy from BLF Press via LibraryThing for my honest, and heartfelt review. Inspired by a deep longing for writing that embodies the vivacity of Blackness and Black life, Black Joy Unbound is a multi-genre collection from various writers. This anthology brought to me the JOY of being black and growing up black. It magnified the good memories and enlisted smiles upon my face recalling ‘Blue Magic’ hair grease that my mother used on our hair, double-dutching endlessly with my cousins on warm summer days, the music that blared from the living room that had everyone singing and dancing. Don’t forget about the threat to go play outside and not to keep runnin’ in and out of the house from your elders. Rubbing my ashy body down with petroleum jelly, rubbing Vicks vapor rub on the bottom of our feet during the cold season, getting shoes from Buster Browns or Stride Rite’s for a special occasion, my mother pressing on the big toe checking for proper fit.
I particularly enjoyed:

• It Shines Within Us by Tiffany Smalls
  
• Joy In Her Sole: Remembering My Mother’s Shoes by Jeanine DeHoney. I once attended a Patty Labelle concert, and she did indeed strip her feet free from her high heeled shoes. She was amazing.
  
• Porkchops by Esperanza Cintrón
  
• Pilot by Akua Lezli Hope
  
• Feast Day, Celebration of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation by doris diosa davenport
  
• Joy Delayed by Penny Mickleberry, in which I own several books, novels by Penny Mickleberry, and was anxious to read her excerpt and has been writing professionally for most of her adult life, first as a newspaper, radio, and television reporter, and for the past 30+ years as a playwright and novelist

It’s a short (151 pages) but powerful, enjoyable read, and it took me down memory lane, and some eye opening verses, stories and poetry. The cover is also a ray of sunshine with bright yellow and colorful flower petals. It is what everyone needs…JOY!
½

It looked like someone had squeezed a store into a single cube of an ice tray (p.28). So much is squeezed into this book that the joy in you will be activated and released. Childhood memories, lovers, ancestors… Poems and prose are grounded in the day to day but allow us to sink deeply in a spiritual bath, warming us from the outside in. Thirty fabulous writers bring their gifts to bare in this gorgeous anthology.

Black Joy Unbound is an anthology (edited by Stephanie Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle) of poetry, vignettes, celebrations of women: their families, of love, and of surviving the unending injustice of racism, and all the cruelties the world inflicts on black women. There is a shimmering beauty in these works, which are of a consistently high quality, even when describing pain. But always joy seems to triumph in these words.

In one of my favorite pieces,“Three Years Later,” A. Brown writes, “we got the scraps. The misshapen and defunct magic.” But out of those scraps, family bonds weave a picture of love, seen through the lens of a high-stakes foot race and a box of origami butterflies.

The pieces are often exuberant outpourings of language, of desire, of willpower, of love. There is a lovely story in which the narrator tries to remember a pair of here mother’s shoes and remembers all the shoes her mother had, remembers shopping at Buster Brown (names from my childhood!), until the shoes bring back all the love contained in that mother/daughter relationship.

Maria Hamilton Abegunde meditates on the necessity for her of writing to connect with the presence of joy, the function of joy, in her lovely piece, “The Spirit of the Rhythm Catches You and You Dance.” Of writing she says, “I am alive because I write. . . . My writing is a practice dedicated to joy’s ‘constant unfolding. . .’”And of dancing she writes, “I am freest, most Black and, therefore, joyful, when I am dancing.” This essay contains so many lines I long to quote, to remember I will have to stop before I end up quoting the entire piece!

I will end with this quote from “To: Whom It May Concern/Re: Black Joy,” poet Regina YC Garcia almost sings:

The children know that there is love
Just there
In Black joy
and for ALL who may be concerned
Know this—
While this joy is juxtaposed to pain
the glory is that it can
Emerge
again, and again
Black Joy
Shine
Radiate
Refine
Create
More and more
Great God! Black joy!

I urge everyone to give themselves the gift of this collection, of the diversity of pieces united by the common theme of “Black Joy Unbound.”

Stephanie Andrea Allen combines some of my favorite literary elements: speculative fiction, science fiction, Black women’s stories, and short stories. Her work in How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions is vibrantly written and a wonderful, cozy collection to read during these winter months. Allen’s creativity is captivating; her stories are full of vibrant details and surprising plot devices. One of the most pleasing things about these stories is that they include intersectional characters and narratives in futuristic scenarios.

Id like to thank Library Thing and BLF , for sending this book for review.
I loved this collection of Speculative Black Lesbian short stories. The characters were fun, lively and engaging. The stories are full of feelings, humor and nuance. I think the fun lively tone of these stories was fantastic and really drove the stories along.
Some of my favorites were "Hirsute"(be sure you know the consequences before plucking any silver hair) and "Sans Pareil" about a sleeping mask that finally allows a woman to sleep, after many sleepless nights, but is it worth the price?? "Catfished" opens your eyes to online hook ups, and meetings.
My most favorite was "Luna 6000", where the truth of a womens family is stranger than fiction.
These stories were a great read, and stayed with me. I thought about them long after finishing the story. I look forward to more from Stephanie Andrea Allen.

I really liked almost all of the short stories in this book. I loved the way the author played with form and language. I felt like I would love to read much more of each world the author built. I'm a big speculative fiction fan, and I felt the stories were all deeply thought through and full of emotion.

I'm so glad the author created and included a glossary. I actually enjoyed it on its own. It was almost like its own story.

This book is an absolute delight. I don't know if I've ever rated an ER book so highly.

This book is like if you take the best of O. Henry but make it Black and queer (and authentically so) - it's amazing. Most of the stories are speculative fiction (many robots here, some vampires), and most of them feature some sort of plot twist. Some of those twists are more effective than others, some are more obvious than others, but all of them are a delight.

I feel like the folks who complain that the stories are too open-ended are not familiar with how short stories work as a genre. Their open-ended nature is an absolute strength - each story shows you a complete glimpse into a different, fully-fleshed world, and tells you a complete story. But each one could probably be chapter one of a full-fledged novel of its own.

I especially liked how the first and last stories bookend the entire collection and are the only two that are directly related. The glossary at the end is also masterfully executed.

Simply a beautiful book. My copy is an ARC, so I'll be buying the final print version along with the author's debut collection as well. I highly recommend it.½

From the first story in the collection, I was hooked on Allen's style and voice. The creativity and humor on display here are fantastic, and the interplay of serious themes with everyday concerns and humor made me want to simply sit and read the collection in one sitting--certainly, they've guaranteed I'll pick up anything else she writes. Some of the speculative fiction here is so original in its wonder and speculative elements, it left me practically breathless, and I'd absolutely recommend it not only to readers of short speculative work at large, but to writers who want to blend original speculative fiction with a more contemporary aesthetic.

The one caveat I feel like I have to mention is that this collection is absolutely front-loaded. The best of the stories are in the first two-thirds of the work, with the last few stories in the collection feeling a bit less polished and fully developed than earlier works in the collection. The ideas were still there, but the characters weren't quite so alive. Because of that front-loaded nature, I felt a bit let down with the last portion of the book, but at the same time, Allen set such a high bar for herself with the early stories, that 'let-down' is very much relative to the quality of the book. This is still, without doubt, a 4.5* read for me that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend, especially for readers who like short stories with a flare for humor.½

All but one of the eleven short stories in this collection fall under the sf/f/h umbrella, and all are told from the viewpoints of characters who don't fall into the straight white male category; between the seventeen viewpoint characters throughout the stories, each of those three descriptors is definitively hit exactly once, each in a different story, two of them in stories with multiple viewpoint characters and the third in the shortest story in the book. While having diverse viewpoints is a definite plus to the field, most of these stories just fell short for me.

Part of the problem, admittedly, probably rests with me; the experiences and metaphors may resonate better with someone with more (or, usually, anything) in common with the characters. However, some of the problems felt like they were more fundamental to the stories themselves.

One problem that struck me was that, while the author had interesting ideas (such as "What if there's an AI rebellion, but it's just the AIs saying, 'Screw this, we're outta here'?" or "What if making an avatar in a program turned you into that person?" for example) but didn't really have a story to go with those ideas. This results in some of the stories (specifically, "Moji", "Hirsute", "Sans Pareil", and "Tumbleweave") feeling more like the start of a longer story than complete in and of themselves.

Another issue is that the viewpoint characters (or the main ones, in the case of stories with more than one) often feel more like observers than active participants, carried along by the story without doing anything to try to affect things. Sometimes this is a reasonable choice for the story (such as "Chums on the Run", where the narrator is in a similar position to the titular chums, but hasn't yet made any effort to do anything about it), but it usually just leaves it harder to sympathize with the characters. In the case of "Love Thy Neighbor", all of the work of dealing with the main problem is handled offstage (and, in fact, before the story starts) by the protagonist's wife. To be fair, some of the main viewpoint characters in the more complete-feeling stories (such as Jada in "Catfished" or Teagan in "Project M") are much more active in their own stories.

Some of the stories also left me wondering what the point of them was, but I suspect that this is mostly covered by all of the points above (including the one about my usually having nothing in common with the characters in terms of life experiences).

Finally, there are the little details that threw off my suspension of disbelief. These weren't the fantastical elements (a cat that can not only communicate telepathically, but also produce human speech out loud? Sure, I'll go along with that), but ones that involve the more mundane (could you really order that on Amazon? And is Alexa's security really so bad that anyone could place an order on your account through yours, at least if you know there's one person who'd have regular access to your Alexa?). These were mostly points which I'm not certain about, but they just felt off to me, and one story had plot points which depend on attitudes not changing at all in more than two centuries despite the society pretty much guaranteeing that attitudes would have changed noticeably.½

This was a decent read, My first impression was that most of the stories were similar to "nicer" black mirror tales. I did feel that while its nice to leave endings open - there was too much of that. Some of the stories would have benefitted from stronger character development and a longer story line. I couldn't get into the "weave" story - probably the weakest in my opinion. I appreciate the tales and think the author could go father with going deeper and more in depth. Each story just left me wanting just a bit more. Decent read but some flaws.

While the book flowed fairly well, it grew a bit repetitive so I'd recommend reading it over time. It read like the author was a new one, some of the stories felt off and stilted. I started to anticipate how a character was going to die and appreciated the variety of methods the author chose.

Stephanie Andrea Allen's How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions is a collection rich in high concepts, ideas, and queer characters of color who are still woefully underrepresented in mainstream literature. These stories are at their strongest when they take the form of fables, like the rideshare scooters and hair weaves that came to life of their own and set out on incredible journies. Some of them took the form of bodily horror tales, and one or two mystery/thrillers which might have been the weaker of the bunch. Particularly prescient are the opening and closing stories which were connected between decades exploring the interplay of technology biology and culture in the near far future in Atlanta. Unfortunately, some of the characterization and setting fell flat. This reviewer fell there was a lot of telling when there could have been more showing, and that some of those high concepts could have done with richer development. Still, these are all themes wish to see more of, and look forward to seeing what Allen comes out with next.

Oh my saints and angels, this was SO good. Funny and gross and terrifying and chilling, and as easy to drink in as a speculative smoothie. Had so much fun relaxing into this, shocked and exhilarated in turn, especially by the stories about Teagan, Taryn, and the Luna 6000 that bookended the collection, and was so grateful for the hilariously grisly glossary, which seemed like a tender gesture to the reader, who closes such a collection regretting that you can only read it for the first time once!

A collection of short, strange stories, mostly focusing on Black lesbian characters, and mostly coming under the heading of some variety or other of speculative fiction. Most of these have premises that sound cool and intriguing: A woman finds her entire life being taken over by her futuristic smartphone. A cat plots to murder its human's annoying house guest. A vampire unknowingly makes a date with someone from a family of vampire hunters.

And yet, I hate to say it, but the writing just doesn't quite seem up to doing these ideas justice. I'm trying to think how best to describe it. "A bit amateurish" maybe just sounds mean. Perhaps I should go with "overly simplistic?" We've got lots and lots of little declarative sentences that keep telling us facts about the characters and their worlds and their lives when they really should be inviting us in to experience them, you know?

And, no doubt in large part because of that, these stories mostly failed to land for me the way they should, even the more disturbing ones. The overall result is a collection that constantly feels on the verge of doing something really, really interesting, and never quite delivers on it.

I'm a fan of the short story format, especially for speculative fiction, but I think most of these stories could have used a bit more time. Stephanie Andrea Allen has a great set of story ideas here, but most of them feel like they weren't entirely unpacked (or were unpacked so quickly, you can't fully register what happened).
'Chums on the Run' is a standout for me, because the entire tone is light and fun, so the short nature works for it. It feels like a snippet of day-to-day life in a speculative sci-fi world. Many of the other stories feel like they're larger, more important stories in that world, but the pace is so rushed, it seems like I'm missing a build-up.
Overall, I'd go 3.5 stars on this collection. I'd be interested in seeing some longer forms from the author. She creates interesting worlds, but needs to give them the time to expand.

How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions
By Stephanie Andrea Allen
2021

A LibraryThing Early Reviewer book.
In the last year or so, by chance, I have read a lot of short stories, way more than I usually do. So I was willing to take a chance on this slim volume of stories. Especially since I appreciate LGBTQ+ and African-American Science Fiction. But, I just couldn't get into most of the stories in this book. Mostly because just as soon as I was getting hooked into a story, a quick ending was thrust onto it and it was over.I guess that they felt rushed to me and some of the endings felt forced.

My favorite stories were: Hirsute, Moji, Project M. Maybe it was because these three ended up on a lighter note than the other stories. Or that the main character didn't seem to completely change on the last page of the story. I also really appreciate that the author continued the first story (Luna 6000) with the last story (Project M), since the first did not feel finished when I read it and the "ending" was so contrived. By coming back to it, the author was able to make it a better story.

This volume of short stories has its flaws, but if you are looking for some quick, light reading, you might like to give this a try.

2 1/2 to 3 stars½

An intriguing & original collection of stories, centering around the lives of black, queer women & non-binary people. Here we have electric scooters that talk, a weave that releases itself from a head to start a new journey, & bookended stories that address how "smart" devices infiltrate & influence our lives.

I enjoy Allen's often playful tone, & her varied characters & settings. While there's a definite "feel" to these stories, they're certainly not repetitive or formulaic. Each addresses death, & often murder, in some form, but the perspectives & outcomes are as unique as the characters themselves.

Some of the stories felt too short or with resolutions that were too abrupt, but overall this is a refreshing, engaging collection of speculative fiction!

Short stories tend to go wrong in one of two very different ways: the author tries to cram an entire novel into 10-15 pages or the author can’t develop a complete story in 10-15 pages. This collection fell into the latter trap.

I enjoyed the stories with a fantasy element (Hirsute, Coral D. Cat) more than the science fiction stories (Coffee Date, Luna 6000). These stories start with a familiar premise then take a surreal turn. They were clever, creative, and fun.½

Fun, diverting, creative stories that often begin in a familiar reality and suddenly go awry. The stories are surprising ("Chums on the Run," for instance) but she makes them make sense. Even when she uses foreshadowing so you think you kinda, mighta guessed the end, the homage is so delicious, you don't even mind. There are bumps, moments of awkwardness, a cliche or two; The story "Hirsute" felt interminable. The major problem, though, is that Allen wraps things up too fast. As soon as things get interesting -boom- we're done. It can be jarring and unsatisfying and keeps these stories, for me, from rising above the fun and diverting.

3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4. Wonderfully creative story premises. When I try to picture the protagonists, I see many of them as comedian/actor Leslie Jones, but in a vulnerable mode. There's something big about these characters, even when they are feeling smalld and insecure. Some of the stories have a narrator, others are first person, but all feel real, honest, and immediate to me. Bookending the first and last stories was a great idea (which I wouldn't have spoiled, but the publisher description already did it), along with the 'suggestions' at the end. My only critique is that the writing doesn't quite live up to the creativity of the stories - it's clean and clear but I feel like it's missing a kind of twinkle or spark that would make the stories really pop.

Thanks to the Librarything and the publisher for an Advanced Reader Copy.

I received a copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to publisher BLF Press for the ARC that also included a nice bookmark and lapel button in an organza bag. The author, Stephanie Andrea Allen, Ph.D., is a writer, publisher, and a professor of gender studies with research interests that include Black lesbian literary history, Black feminism, sexual citizenship, and popular culture. These interests are strongly represented in this collection of speculative short stories.
These are quirky stories based around a variety of ways that humans are ‘dispatched’ (murdered). Most of the characters are Black LGBTQ women that find themselves in unexpected or dire circumstances, some by chance and some due to questionable decisions. Although several of the stories are fairly dark or creepy, they are not really that gruesome. I’d describe them as futuristic, with a lot of cultural references and a strong Black Mirror/Twilight Zone vibe. Allen uses sarcastic humor and contemporary dialogue to keep things snappy and weird but not too grim.
Although the ideas are good, the writing / editing isn’t really up to the level of some of the great speculative short stories being published these days. However, it’s probably not fair to measure these against other collections I’ve recently read (thinking of N.K. Jemisin’s short stories, for instance). I did have to laugh at the murderous Coral D. Cat story (cats - yikes).

(Full disclosure: was able to read this thanks to LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Reading tomorrow's books today!)

Original collection. Some of the stories work (of them, I liked "Tumbleweave," the best), some don't. For the ones that didn't, usually it was because I felt like the idea's implications weren't explored enough. A couple felt like they ended right when it started getting interesting. C'est la vie. Your opinions may differ, and that's okay.