Dark Matter: Reading the Bones
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Dark Matter is the first and only series to bring together the works of black SF and fantasy writers. The first volume was featured in the "New York Times," which named it a Notable Book of the Year.Publishers WeeklyAfter the spectacular Dark Matter (2000), Thomas offers something of a mixed bag in her second anthology of speculative fiction from the African diaspora. Of the stories set during the days of slavery, ihsan bracy's "ibo landing" proves that stylization of subject matter can be more powerful than historical fidelity. The shimmering, brutal outlines created by such simple sentences as "each in their own way understood the distance. they would never again be home" stay with the reader for a long time. By contrast, the weight of research muffles the emotional impact of a story like Cherene Sherrard's "The Quality of Sand." Similarly, Charles R. Sanders's "Yahimba's Choice" seems written by an anthropologist studying a distant culture, the story unable to move past surface ritual and wooden dialogue. The strongest entry is Kuni Ibura Salaam's "Desire," an experimental retelling of a folktale that's wonderfully fresh, with exquisite detail: "Quashe's back formed one gleaming stretch of reptile skin. Her torso, neck, and arms were honey-amber, human-soft skin moist with river dew." This story will probably appear in at least one year's best collection. Other stories of note include Pam Noles's "Whipping Boy" and Tananarive Due's "Aftermoon." Solid reprints from Samuel R. Delaney and W.E.B. Du Bois, among others, round out the volume, along with several essays of varying quality. Agent, Marie Dutton Brown. (Jan. 2) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
IntroductionIbo landing1The Quality of Sand7Yahimba's Choice24The Glass Bottle Trick47Desire61Recovery from a Fall78Anansi Meets Peter Parker at the Taco Bell on Lexington89The Magical Negro91Jesus Christ in Texas95Will the Circle Be Unbroken?105'Cause Harlem Needs Heroes111Whipping Boy126Old Flesh Song150Whispers in the Dark162Aftermoon183Voodoo Vincent and the Astrostoriograms197The Binary214BLACKout232Sweet Dreams243Buying Primo Time249Corona256Maggies276Excerpt from Mindscape294Trance314The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Transcription of a Panel at the 1997 Black Speculative Fiction Writers Conference Held at Clark Atlanta University349Her Pen Could Fly: Remembering Virginia Hamilton369Celebrating the Alien: The Politics of Race and Species in the Juveniles of Andre Norton375Contributors385Copyrights and Permissions397Acknowledgments399
