I don't know how I missed this when it first came out. It's a HUGE collection (700 pages in electronic form) with big names and new names. ( )

In recent years I've been making an effort to read more broadly, and my encounters with [a:Octavia E. Butler|29535|Octavia E. Butler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1242244143p2/29535.jpg], [a:Nnedi Okorafor|588356|Nnedi Okorafor|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1507148868p2/588356.jpg] and [a:N.K. Jemisin|2917917|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438215930p2/2917917.jpg] have brought me into the sphere of Afrofuturism. I'd been yearning to delve deeper so this seemed the perfect find



I'm aware there is much debate about what exactly Afrofuturism is, and the "and Beyond" of this title should have suggested to me that editor [a:Bill Campbell|485442|Bill Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1193610344p2/485442.jpg] trawls his net widely; there are the kind of thing that I might have expected (although somehow I expected nothing in particular, and thought myself wide open, clearly I carry the cultural baggage of of a certain age and ethnicity and gender and geography and class and experience 47 year old, white male, North of England and the rest if messy, for the record so the stories that showed a standard SF future but with a Afrocentric slant, or some variant from a past less dominated by European colonialism - or simply from a point of view not rooted in that history.



That would have been plenty to both sate and whet my appetite, but there is more here. It is almost misleading to call this anthology Afrofuturism (if that is the use of a fashionable term for attention, it is forgivable); this is a collection of fictions of inclusion, of voices of groups marginalised in art and culture, their voices and viewpoints. This collection is a shining example of the joy of exploration beyond one's usual boundaries. The standard of the stories is superb (not every single one to my taste, for instance the few ultra-shorts, but I am not really a fan of flash-fiction) and there are a handful of tales that took my breath away - those by [a:Victor LaValle|1762294|Victor LaValle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1280959466p2/1762294.jpg], [a:N.K. Jemisin|2917917|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438215930p2/2917917.jpg], [a:Ernest Hogan|174331|Ernest Hogan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1337050391p2/174331.jpg], [a:S.P. Somtow|81037|S.P. Somtow|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207602392p2/81037.jpg], [a:Junot Díaz|55215|Junot Díaz|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1487667538p2/55215.jpg] - and I'm sure others I'm leaving off- were the highlights.



One of the joys of anthologies is finding writers I may not have otherwise come across, and this has certainly opened my horizons. It is a perfect illustration of two of my favourite quotes:

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while." Malorie Blackman

“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Neil Gaiman



So read widely. Read people who are not like you. Read people who have different experiences, different histories, different outlooks. Read colour, read gender, read sexuality.



Read difference. ( )

This collection of short speculative stories is a real mixed bag. I listened to an audio version so I didn't have any idea what any story would be about, and cannot now connect specific titles and authors with the stories I really liked. I'm going to have to find a print version to point me in the direction of new interesting authors.
It seems the first several were oriented to juvenile males, but since I didn't have any other audio books on a long car ride I persisted. Happily the stories began to be interesting and creative.
It appears as if "Blackness" wasn't a requirement as much as being a minority author or subject. There was an interesting Malaysian steam punk tale, several thought-provoking tales set in the Middle East, a few in the Caribbean.
I highly recommend this to anyone willing to be a selective reader. ( )