Everything for Everyone

 

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi (2022) 256 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla narrated by Charli Burrow and Soneela Nankani. The authors have written this as if they are the oral history interviewers. This is speculative fiction about the near future, but it is in the style of nonfiction. It feels a bit dry, but very real. With the current developments of late-stage capitalism the future presented here is very probable. Many of the people interviewed about their part in the growth of communes in New York city are people of color or queer. We hear from many people who understand activism, abolition, collectivism, and mutual aid as tools to survive the collapse of the old systems. If you are interested in dystopian fiction that is closely tied to reality like Octavia Butler's Parable books or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, you'll probably enjoy this. It has a hopeful message.

The Memory Librarian

 The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae (2022) 321 pages

This could almost be called a short story collection, except the stories are loosely linked. There are five contributors listed on Goodreads that helped Janelle Monae put each part of the story on paper. I listened to the audiobook with the first part narrated by Janelle Monae and the rest narrated by Bahni Turpin. Fans of The Handmaids' Tale would probably enjoy this. The stories take place in a near-future totalitarian state. Even though there is less overt religious involvement in the regulations of public and private life, all the main characters are labeled "Dirty Computers." Janelle Monae's third album was titled Dirty Computer. I had seen their series of music videos that form an "emotion picture" for this album when it was released about five years ago. In this world, Dirty Computers have there memories erased to force conformity. This totalitarian state targets queer people of color. Concepts of Intersectionality are explored in each story. It is suggested, but not made completely clear, that each story advances in time and involves characters from the previous story living their re-invented life after their memory wipe. There is sci-fi tech controlled by the state for surveying the population and very little power left to the ordinary person. I don't read short stories very often. Just as you get invested in one, it is over. I wish the separate stories were more connected like chapters of a whole. I became a bit frustrated trying to guess how each connected to the previous one. And I wish there was more world building description that referenced the visual design of the music videos.

How Long 'Til Black Future Month?

How Long 'Til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin, 400 pages

In this collection of short stories, three-time Hugo winner Jemisin offers up 22 nuggets of speculative fiction that run the gamut from mythology (Death wandering around a post-human New York City) to interstellar (transcripts from humanity's first contact with a new race on another planet) to magical realism (defunct subway trains mysteriously appearing for a single rider) to allegory (a Ninth Ward man fighting against a literal giant beast of Hate during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). All, however, include people of color as protagonists, something that has long been lacking in the genre; indeed, this missing element is the subject of Jemisin's ranting essay that gives the book its title. (The essay isn't included in the book, as it's not fiction, but can be found here, on Jemisin's blog. Also, make sure you watch the Janelle Monae music videos embedded in the essay; they're fantastic!)

For someone who writes in the introduction that she didn't think she could write short fiction, Jemisin knocks it out of the park with these stories. The worlds are all richly created and fully realized within the few short pages of the stories, and the characters are just as three-dimensional as anyone in her long-form work. What an excellent author, and what a great collection.