Africa Risen

June 1, 2022

Locus and World Fantasy finalist Thomas, Nommo Award--winning speculative author Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight, a USA Today best-selling author and British Fantasy Award--winning editor, join forces to present 32 original stories highlighting the power of fantasy and SF from Africa and the African diaspora. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from August 8, 2022
Thomas, Ekpeki, and Knight assemble a stellar lineup of 32 writers from across the African diaspora for this magnificent and wide-ranging anthology of speculative shorts. Some stories center on technology, including “IRL” by Steven Barnes, in which the protagonist must contend with the ever-thinning line between virtuality and reality. Others focus on history and politics: Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s “Simbi” puzzles through the legacies of slavery and exploitation of labor, while in Wole Talabi’s “A Dream of Electric Mothers,” a woman consults a supercomputer containing the memories of her countryfolk to determine whether to go to war. Akua Lezli Hope’s “The Papermakers,” meanwhile, takes the anthology in a breezy and slightly surreal direction with the story of an interracial relationship in a papermaking guild. If none of the stories stand out, it’s because each is as masterful as the next. This weighty sampler is best read slowly to give each writer their due before moving on to the next. It’s an impressive survey of contemporary Black SFF that should be a must-read for all genre fans.

Starred review from October 1, 2022
In these 32 original short stories, dragons, werefoxes, and flesh eaters lurk; drought and pollution threaten life on earth; the past and future twist and meld. The acclaimed team of editors has gathered a collection of sf, fantasy, and speculative fiction from Africa and the African diaspora that spans across genre and form, shifting from complicated webs of narrative like "Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition)," by Tlotlo Tsamaase, to generational tales of magic like "The Soul Would Have No Rainbow," by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, to sf, cinematic wonders like "A Dream of Electric Mothers," by Wole Talabi. An android sees a blue house on the horizon that links her to file organic.sys; a government agency attempts to repurpose a doorway taken from a pharaoh's resting place to enhance their time-travel capabilities; a lion goddess wonders if she will ever be able to trust again. Particular standouts include the terrifying librarians of Tobi Ogundiran's "The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library," the stories of triumph over violence, including Chinelo Onwualu's "The Taloned Beast," and the space-travel epic that is Dare Segun Falowo's "Biscuit & Milk." These stories enchant, surprise, and provoke and are a significant addition to the canon of modern speculative fiction.

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