Rezensionen
The stories are equally far-ranging in theme and style, and are a great introduction to authors you may not have read before even as an SFF fan. As with any anthology of this type, I found some stories I liked and others that didn't provoke much of a reaction one way or the other with me. Probably my favorite of the bunch was the very creepy "The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library" by Tobi Ogundiran that told what happened when some poor fellow had an overdue book he couldn't find.
Now I'm off to look for more work by the authors whose stories I really loved, and that, right there, is the reason I love collections of short stories.
1. The Very Nasty Aquarium by Peter S. Beagle - Mrs Lopsided's nephew brings her an aquarium. She loves it and her new hobby has her shopping for additions. She buys a wooden pirate from an antique store but this was a very bad decision. She finds out the pirate is possessed by a duppy, an evil spirit. A perfect story. Beautifully written and entertaining. (5/5)
2. A Half-Remembered World by Aimee Ogden - People live on the backs of giant crab like creatures they call gods. They are ruled by deacons. Melu is one of the scavengers who descend the legs and find food and other usable items for the people. But their god is dying and they hope it will mate and produce offspring before it does so. An offspring would provide a new home for them. This was a full blown novella which I read over two mornings and was excellent. The characters were emotional and the plot exciting. Wonderful story. (5/5)
3. Approved Methods of Love Divination in the First-Rate City of Dushagorod by Kristina Ten - A strange satirical story I really didn't get. It's the future and after much war the government is working towards repopulating. Finding a soul mate is essential and Divination centres are the norm. Our story is about a young woman who keeps getting illegible results. (2/5)
4. Vanishing Point by RJ Taylor - Contractors land on planet. Their mission is to get a sample and get out. The being appears far away in the distance and computer says it is 4 hours away. This is the largest creature ever known. But when they get to the coordinates the being still appears very far away and estimate is four hours away. Very engaging narrative. (4/5)
5. The Pet of Olodumare by Joshua Uchenna Omenga and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki - A creation story of how the humans were made and the Earth created. Was a fun imaginative story. (3/5)
6. The Serenity Prayer by Faith Merino - It is the start of the annual Hunt. A ritual where boys become men. Short and sweet. ,(3/5)
7. We Go on Faith Alone by KS Walker - A couple moves into a home where birds fly into the windows every day. Then the woman starts thinking about how migration works. Made no sense to me at all. (1/5)
8. Little Bird by Jill McMillan - A girl in a small town is living on her own since her father's death. One morning she wakes and finds her arms covered in scratches. Good character development brings Linnet to life. A well told story. (3/5)
9. Gather Me a Treasure by Jordan Chase-Young - A man visits an alien who is able to ressurect people. He brings him many gifts and asks for his twin sister to be ressurected. An entertaining and unusual story. The twist ending was ironic. (3/5)
10. NPC (or Eight Haxploits to Maximize Your Endgame Farming: A Players Guide) by DaVaun Sanders - All about gaming. I didn't understand it at all. (0/5)
11. A Meal for Frederick by Nick Thomas - A family makes a paper and tape dragon to hang in the kitchen. Over the years the father feeds it and his children stay healthy. Then his son is in a car crash. Very touching and we'll written. Really enjoyed this. (4/5)
12. The Day of the Sea by Jennifer Hudak - A girl tells the story of when the Sea came to visit her village. Written like an old sea myth. Not a lot happens. (3/5)
13. what to Do When a Protagonist Visits Your Generic Village by Dan Peacock - Dumb and boring. (0/5)
14. Pedestals, Proclivities, and Perpetuities by Celeste Rita Baker - This is supposed to be a satire but of what I have no idea. Charles throws Ann onto the roof and she stays there for months. (1/5)
15. A Time To Sing by Eddie D. Moore - This is microfiction which I'm not going to rate because I have no appreciation for it.
16. The Giant's Dream by Beth Gader - Very short story of a woman who lives inside a giant. Just ok. Not sure if I get the ending. (2/5)
Read. Enjoy. Ponder.
-Kirkus Review
"Black Panther: Panther's Rage" is a prose adaptation of the comic book of the same title. Same as everyone, I've watched the film adaptation. In this prose adaptation, we see a vulnerable T'Challa. It's a nice change from the fierce and wise movie T'Challa. It is also fresh to see him as an older brother and a good friend. We also read about the beauty of Wakanda. We get to explore uncharted territories, see undead dinosaurs and tour mystic mountains. The issue I have with this book is that T'Challa always goes in alone in all the major events and kept on battling (one at a time) at least 7 members of the Death Regiment including Killmonger (twice!), getting badly injured, recuperating and doing it all over again. Aside from the 100 information he got from all this investigating and fighting, T'Challa was still unprepared for the attack of the dinosaurs (that wasn't truly a surprise). The love story was also too much. It was bordering on obsession to be honest.
"The Art of Victory When the Game Is All the World" by Eugie Foster is one of those discovered stories which are published after the author's death and as such it is unclear how much it may have changed had the author lived. These can be hit or miss - depending on where the story was when the author died and who got to work on it after that. In a world which does not seem to have any correlation to our own, a caste of technicians creates "champions" - constructs who are formed by careful combination of aptitudes and impediments. Another cast sponsors the creations which are considered viable - and play a game, seeing how their lives evolve. That game is the pinnacle of the society - that's what everyone else exists for. People belong to a caste based on their own aptitudes - they get assigned into them, they make their vows and they are usually stuck in them. Until one of the best technician is asked to step up and attempt a promotion. We never learn who is who in that society - is that gods and humans or humans and a different form or something totally different. But it does not really matter. We get to live the life of one of the constructs, to be part of the game - and almost as a sideline, to be part of the life of the society that plays the game. In a centuries old way, life imitates art (and vice versa) and love ends up the ingredient that noone adds but that matters the most. The whole story is a play on the choice and destiny duality - and one can make their own decision if they want to fall on either side or find their own way.
The 4 novelettes are only comparable by their length.
"Animale Dei Morti" by Nick Dichario is a modern Italian fairy tale, set nowadays but using the conventions of the old time - complete with a witch, animated corpses and misunderstandings. It is one of my favorite stories in this issue - it should sound derivative but it does not and you cannot stop laughing at how anything the main character Marco tries makes things worse - trying not to break one tradition ends up messing up others; not thinking through the witch's conditions ends up costing him everything. And for all that, the tale never gets dark (and one wonders if some of the bad things were really that bad - that bride of his was not really someone you would wish to your worst enemy).
In "Bone Broth" by Karen Heuler, a secret society believes themselves to be connected to the giants who roamed the Earth in the olden days (tying aliens into the mix as well). Then a waitress somehow stumbles into it and seems to fall for all of it. The scary part is that I am pretty sure that there are people who may really believe in this kind of things - and not just inside of this story.
The third novelette, "Prison Colony Optimization Protocols" by Auston Habershaw leaves Earth and transports us to a penal colony on a station somewhere in the galaxy. An AI had really messed up but due to UN rules, it cannot be just disabled or killed so it is sent to try to optimize the systems of the penal colony. So what happens when an AI is punished? It finds a way around its punishment of course - in the most unexpected way. I really enjoyed this story - it found that path between humor and seriousness that is hard to stay on.
And the last of the novelettes, "The Gentle Dragon Tells His Tale of Love" by J. A. Pak is the kind of tale that does not hide anything - its title tells you what you are getting. An old dragon finds love for the last time and tells us the tale. Except the gentle maiden he finds is neither a maiden, nor gentle. And yet - love conquers all and the two broken souls find happiness. I hope the authors plans to add more stories to this world - there are so many more tales to be told - both about our dragon and about everything else.
The short stories were the usual mixed bag of stories that work and ones that have some ideas but somehow do not really manage to reach me.
"Ennead in Retrospect" by Christopher Mark Rose is a far future tale of a broken space craft and a knife which can split a person in two - their dark and light side. Except that this does not really make two complete people, especially for the ones who live with them. Add a child and a secret or three (which are obvious from the beginning) and the story makes sense but something just did not click for me.
In "Full Worm Moon" by Paul Lorello, a clan of people live at the outside of society and feeds with the memories of the departed - by eating the worms that eat their remains. What they get it return is not just memories though - they almost become the other people. And when a young man eats too many too early, he starts questioning his own life. It is a tale about belonging but you better not have your lunch when you are reading it.
"Proximity Games" by M. L. Clark returns us back to space - although a very different one. Families get selected to leave Earth, to go live among the stars, to conquer new worlds. It all sounds noble and nice but things are not as green as they look and one may wonder what really is better - to be left behind or to be selected. As for the stars - we are really not a very intelligent species sometimes. It is a nice tale of exploration and choices - not all of which are what they seem to be.
In "Salt Calls to Salt" by Maiga Doocy, Zelda is not allowed any real feelings or excitement - if she ever has them, her feet get covered in scales and she turns into a mermaid. So her aunt does anything she can to make sure that she is protected, with Zelda cooperating fully, knowing her own mother's fate. At least for the time being anyway. It is a sweet tale of growing up and deciding what is important in one's life.
The next story, "doe_haven.vr" by Cara Mast, throws us into the life of a young woman who finds solace into a virtual reality - until someone disturbs her there. It is a quiet tale about being able to connect with other people.
"The City and the Thing Beneath It" by Innocent Chizaram Ilo is written by a Nigerian (Igbo) writer and is set in Lagos where the week does not go exactly as the rulers of the country want it to - something falls from the sky and they are not happy about it (and despite everyone seeing it, they still try to claim it never happened). There are soldiers and violence and a Lagos which seem to be in our times but you hope it is not. It is a confusing tale - both the way it is told and what it tries to achieve.
The last story in the issue, "There Won't Be Questions" by Joe Baumann, gets us back to the magical - a boy finds out that if he wishes something very much, it can appear - even if there is a price to pay. Noone knows how or why, noone knows if these things get transported in space or if they get recreated or come from elsewhere. Mix up some young love which appears to be one-sided and the whole mess gets even messier. It is clear where the tale is going and it does get to its logical end. Ending it where it did end may leave someone unhappy but it works - because if it was continued, it would be a different story.
The three poems were way too modern for my taste (two by Bogi Takacs and one by Gretchen Tessmer). The cartoons were mildly entertaining - none really jumped at me as hilarious.
The usual columns:
- In the science section, Jerry Oltion explains how old things are dated (a bit simplified but not a bad explanation)
- The film review section is about a series I had not watched ("Raised by Wolves"
- Paul di Filippo's "Plumage from Pegasus" imagines a writing award in 2030 unlike any other (which as usual is a commentary on our reality).
And then there are the reviews:
- The Curiosities section goes back to 1976 (which is pretty modern for that column) to take a look at Leonora Carrington's "The Hearing Trumpet". Charles de Lint manages to mention 4 books I had not read (and now I want to) - I own one, already read another ("Wayward Souls")) and Michelle West adds 4 more to my ever growing list (at least I actually had heard of 3 of these before - one of them is even home from the library). I have a suspicion that the 9 books will feature in my very near future... that's what happens when one finally get around to reading a full magazine.
Not a perfect issue and not all stories worked for me and even the ones that did work did not sparkle really but not a bad issue either. And no stories from long-running series which I had not read (no series stories at all as best as I can tell actually).
-- A Demon's Christmas Carol by Jennie Goloboy - 4*
That was a surprising and sweet story about a demon happily being summoned to Earth. He could use a vacation from Hell and he has fond memories of previous times on Earth.
Read:
-- Seedling by Octavia Cade - 1*
huh? flash fiction. retelling. Hansel and Gretel but they aren't siblings. I didn't understand the point of the story. Did not enjoy.
-- Review: Love Death + Robots - I haven't watched all of them yet so I tried to avoid spoilers. I think the reviewer is correct in their questioning of why they aren't advancing the genre at all. "... to put it bluntly, there are troves of ideas in which to cull materials. ... the largely male source material and predominately male points-of-view once again don't seem to reflect where science fiction can go or is going in the present... It's worth a read. They say the second season has less sexual and physical violence against women but fails on the sense of wonder SF can bring.
skipping the others
-- Whatever Happened to the Boy Who Fell into the Lake? by Rob Costello - 1* WTF!
CW:
Why did the author tell this story? Why did he do this to the boy? The abandonment was more painful for me than the abuse. Bullshit ending. I hated it. Will not read another by this author.
-- How to Train Your Demon - Lisa Lacey Liscoumb - 3.5*
That was fun and much needed after the last story. *grumble*. A summoned demon and an older woman are "getting things done". That's a Dead Like Me references for those that don't know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxzx9yp-Zwc
-- Picass-O-Matic by Paula Keane - 3*
A plastic surgeon robot misunderstands their boss's "you're no Picasso" statement. And works on fixing that. hehe
-- Mamá Chayo's Magic Lesson - Tato Navarrete Díaz 2.5*
A grandmother teaches her granddaughter (witches) about not forcing her will on the elements that she has power over.
Skipping the others
For many of these stories, such as Cherene Sherrard's The Quality of Sand, and Kiini Ibura Salaam's "Desire," it felt like discovering jewels, each as brilliant as the last even though different. Many of the worlds created here were vivid and engrossing - I would almost describe the sensation of being immersed in them as delicious, and also incredibly empowering. I mean, revolutionary Haitian pirates who are aided by an ancient jinni and sink slave ships, rescuing their cargo? How badass is that?!!
I was also surprised to find a couple of stories towards the end of the book that felt like what I think of as 'classic' SF - compared to earlier lushness, the worlds of Samuel Delany's "Corona" and Charles Johnson's "Sweet Dreams" for example, were sort of sparse, cold and technological. They hit the spot in a way I didn't even know I was missing, reminding me of how SF felt in my childhood. Thoughtful, sad, shaken-up and excited, all at the same time.
Now take a gander at a collection of “speculative fiction from the African Diaspora” called Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. This unusual collection focuses on the experiences of Africans, and their descendents, in the Americas—and the experiences are chilling, as you would expect. Slavery, racism, poverty and homelessness, magic, myth and religion, and killer jazz feature in this anthology of twenty-four stories and three essays. Most of the stories are by less-published authors (and most of those, seemingly, from the editor’s adopted New York City), but there are some major lights here, too: W.E.B. Dubois, the above-mentioned Delany, the fiery Wanda Colman, and Walter Mosley among them.
Although some of the writing in Reading the Bones is fairly mediocre in execution, none of it is so in content. Cherene Sherrard’s story, for instance, “The Quality of Sand,” is exciting and original. It centers on a group of Haitian revolutionaries who, having captured a slave-transport ship, act as “pirates”, freeing the prisoners of other slave ships. The story takes a magical turn when we learn that one of the protagonists is a jinni. Sherrard renders this magical twist as a moment of spiritual realism, producing a satisfying and tasty ending. Several of the stories are of the “stick it to the (white) man” variety, notably Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s “The Magical Negro.” This very funny short-short starts out on a trajectory of comic-book heroism but quickly (it’s only a couple pages long) resists that narrative line, running instead (so to speak, and in order not to give this little gem totally away) in an “Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More” direction.
Perhaps most startling in this fine collection of truly alternative spec lit is W.E.B. Dubois’s story “Jesus Christ in Texas.” “It was in Waco…” the story begins—but “story” is probably the wrong descriptor, since what Dubois spins here is really a parable. Jesus does turn up in Waco, but he’s not the skinny white guy we normally see pinned to a stick. Instead, Dubois manages, in just a few words, to paint a historically plausible Jesus, as a Semitic man with a “coat that looked like a Jewish gabardine” (in contrast to the cowboy’s ankle-length duster) and skin of “olive, even yellow.” This high-yellow Jesus never claims to be the son of God (which idea doesn’t come up until the historically late Gospel of John, anyway), but is, rather, in the business of witnessing and reminding folks it’s not a good idea to steal or murder or rape. It’s the black man who gets this message, of course, and again, as with “The Magical Negro,” the ending provides the satisfying crunch of misguided authority getting its comeuppance while simultaneously offering a salvational vision. Dubois’ story remains startling and relevant in still-racist twenty-first century America, and is even more so when one notices that it was written in 1920.
The anthology concludes with three nonfiction pieces: a writers’ roundtable featuring Delany, Octavia Butler, Jewelle Gomez, Tananarive Due, and the filmmaker William Hudson; an appreciation of African-American writer Virginia Hamilton; and an appreciation of Andre Norton, one of the most prolific science fiction writers ever—and an African American woman, a fact few SF fans realize and that was never revealed in all those old Ace doubles. The author of this last piece, Carol Cooper, pretty well sums up the contribution to Reading the Bones when she writes “that the world was a strange, often cruel, and dangerous place…. We need science fiction to get out of this sort of world.” Amen to that.
Originally published in Curled Up with a Good Book
Full review, including of individual stories: http://reading.kingrat.biz/reviews/dark-matter-sheree-thomas
In the last year or so I have started exploring more of the online communities, LibraryThing being only one venue. I have also been reading more and more blogs, beginning with friends' and branching out to group blogs devoted to various social topics, particularly questions of racism and, to a lesser degree, sexism.
In other words, I've been educating myself, which is a very embarrassing admission--to be middle-aged and still pretty clueless--and an obvious sign of my fairly privileged position in society, for all that I was on welfare as a child and spent my formative years in very diverse neighborhoods, unlike my high school years and beyond, which have proven to be quite, quite segregated in retrospect. On the other hand, when I was younger, I prided myself on my flexibility and my ability to get along with other people, which meant that I tended to put the most favorable interpretation on events and people, always bending over to give the benefit of the doubt.
Now that I am older, I feel crankier, more set in my ways, more opinionated, and much less willing to "go along to get along." I am perhaps not as wonderful a companion, because I feel compelled to challenge people's assumptions and various stupidities, even in fairly casual conversation, rather than letting these small things pass. Perhaps this is the result of reflecting on incidents in my own past for a good decade or so, putting together so many small, subtle things, as well as some great big ones, and realizing "no, this person wasn't young and stupid, he was just an asshole," as well as finally really getting comments made by older women when I was still quite young and truly believed there were no real gender differences.
Also, my background is in science, so I have little academic exposure to these social issues and the scholarly discourse about them. That has been just as fascinating as the topic itself. The other fascinating aspect is that many of these blogs overlap into the science fiction and comic book fan communities. Now I have read science fiction and fantasy my whole life, and comic books sporadically, but I have never been part of any fan community, though many of my friends have. So it has been just as amazing to see these new perspectives from a completely different angle about the literature that I am most connected to, and not just the writing itself, but the community--from online publications to author chats and more. I have followed parts of the RaceFail and MammothFail discussions, which overlap a great deal. I have read and enjoyed the works of some of the authors involved in these, so it is certainly interesting to see interpersonal communication from them. It's all been quite educational on so many levels.
So that is one key piece of background information. The other is that I fell away from exploring fantasy and science fiction for a great many years. After devouring endless novels in my youth, I grew sick of the sheer repetition and lack of originality. I was hungry for something that wasn't medieval northern European with magic or essentially modern American in spaceships. I wanted aliens that were alien, not just guys with prosthetic foreheads (sure, the vast majority of hypothetical life out there must be about our size, with bilateral symmetry, vocal communications, etc.), and something other than people riding around on horses in oak forests meeting with elves on so many other worlds. Why not make further north hotter for change? Come on people, how hard is it to change such a simple assumption. I can't say that I was more than vaguely aware that there were no minorities in most of the stories, or gay people for that matter. But I certainly noticed on the rare occasions when they were present, because in addition, the author usually started with a different set of assumptions or cultural models that also helped the novel stand out, and I wanted more of it.
But it never occurred to me to seek out minority authors. Frankly, I didn't spend much time thinking about the authors. I didn't figure out that Octavia Butler and Samuel Delaney were African American until very recently, again with the embarrassment. Neither have I read any of their works, though I recognize that they are big names. I haven't read many other luminaries either until pretty recently, thanks to my Hugo quest and the gifts of friends outraged by my ignorance. This is also true of non-American authors--once again, I am ignorant and lazy and should read more beyond my borders.
So I was delighted when I stumbled across Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction From the African Diaspora at the university bookstore discount table. Somebody did the work for me--a whole smorgasboard of African-American authors spanning a hundred years. Like any anthology, it included a range of quality, tone, style, voice, and general flavor. Some I liked a great deal, some I felt an immediate connection with, others I found strange, confusing, disturbing, or otherwise uncomfortable. The book consists of an footnoted introduction by the editor, Sheree R. Thomas, 29 short stories (3 being excerpts from novels), and 5 essays. Authors whose names I recognized: W.E.B. DuBois, Samuel R. Delaney, Octavia E. Butler, Nisi Shawl (but only from reading blogs concurrently with this book), and Steven Barnes. Contributors new to me: Linda Addison, Amiri Baraka, Derrick Bell, Charles W. Chesnutt, Henry Dumas, Robert Fleming, Jewelle Gomez, Akua Lezli Hope, Nalo Hopkinson, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, Anthony Joseph, Tony Medina, Paul D. Miller, Walter Mosley, Ama Patterson, Ishmael Reed, Leone Ross, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Charles R. Saunders, George S. Schuyler, Evie Shockley, Darryl A. Smith, and Sheree R. Thomas.
The book was definitely worth the read. I'll be keeping it on my shelves and looking up some of the authors for additional works. And it was successful enough to spawn at least a couple of sequels, as thematic anthologies often do.
Not surprisingly, the stories I found most engaging were narrated by women, because, while I could not necessarily connect with these women of color through personal experiences of racism, I certainly share many of the observations and feelings of being a woman in a sexist society. There are some (many) things that (straight) men just don't think about. And the women in these stories were so warm and real and strong: Lilith, Adam's first wife in "Sister Lilith," Gilda in "Chicago 1927," the nameless narrator in "Can You Wear My Eyes," Dossouye in "Gimmile's Songs," Granny in "Greedy Choke Puppy," I could go on.
Also not surprisingly, more stories had a dystopian tone rather than optimistic, which is to be expected in meditations upon racism, however speculative the medium. Standing out in this direction are "Black No More," "The Space Traders," "The Pretended," Future Christmas," and "Tasting Songs."
Other stories explored more general science fiction and other speculative themes, whose protagonists happened to not be white. I won't continue listing titles though. Go read the book.
The authors drew upon American, African, Caribbean, South American, and probably still other cultures for their inspiration, historical and modern and mythical, creating a vibrant storytelling palette without any sense of repetitiveness. And the science fiction involved some fascinating ideas.
So I mostly liked it, just like other anthologies by multiple authors I have read. And as I said, I will continue to rectify my reading lacunae, following the excellent leads provided in this book.
ETA grammar, punctuation, spelling fixes (blush)
4 
justchris | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 23, 2009 |
justchris | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 23, 2009 | I particularly liked Tananarive Due’s (Steven Barnes’ wife) story “Like Daughter” about a clone child created by a mother with a horrible childhood. Nalo Hopkinson’s “Ganger (Ball Lightning)” is a very erotic, scary, wonderful piece about a sex toy that goes crazy and nearly kills a couple. “The Woman in the Wall” by Steven Barnes takes place in an unnamed African country where the president has just been killed and an American couple and their daughter are sent to a truly frightening refugee camp.
2 anyanwubutler | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 11, 2008 |
anyanwubutler | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 11, 2008 | 2 orangejulia | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 13, 2005 |
orangejulia | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 13, 2005 | 1 |
| Gekennzeichnet
Coruca | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 7, 2006 | 
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In general, I felt this SciFi collection tended towards stories of empowerment of the underdog, as opposed to some mainstream US SciFi which might have much more focus on technology--and that was a great aspect. There were stories which included psychic abilities or witchcraft, stories with technologies controlled by mind, and tales with an environmental aspect.
I'm recommending this to my friends, with my ratings so the ones who have limited time can dive into the best first.
"The Papermakers" is an alternate future of cooperation and low tech, which reminded me of "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy.
"Hanfo Driver" was a funny story which incorporated Nigerian common speech, customary make-do/reuse with hi tech, and homosexual allusions.
**Best: "The Blue House" by Dilman Dila, "Mami Wataworks" by Russell Nichols, "The Sould Would Have No Rainbow" by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, "Simbi" by Sandra Jackson-Opoku, "Cloud Mine" by Timi Odueso, "Ruler of the Rear Guard" by Maurice Broaddus, "Ghost Ship" by Tananarive Due, "Liquid Twilight" by Ytasha Womack, "A Girl Crawls in a Dark Corner" by Alexis Brooks de Vita, "The Papermakers" by Akua Lezli Hope, "A Soul of Small Places" by Mame Bougouma Diene & Woppa Diallo, "Air to Shape Lungs" by Singai Njeri Kagunda, "Exiles of Witchery" by Ivana Akotoowaa Ofori.½