Sci-fi technology heavy books by POC authors?
Hey there readers of ABW! I’ve been gone for far too long haven’t I? Sorry. Been rather busy. This is going to be a short update, unfortunately.
1. Con or bust, the auction programme that works towards sending POC fans to Wiscon, is now open and will be until March 6. All sorts of fun stuff are on offer, from autographed books to pretty shiny jewelry to short story critiques to to spice blends, handstitched book marks, blogposts on your topic of choice, photographs once a week for a year, baked goods including cookies and pies, custom made figurines, podfic offers, Translation of Korean Text into English, Coraline Nike Shoes and more. Go thou and see if you like something there!
2. Rec me some sci-fi, technology heavy novels by POC authors please? Preferably with an emphasis on Women of Color authors but I will take what I can get. Steampunk is fine. Worlds with magic are fine too, just have some technology all around. I don’t care if the technology is powered by magic or the rules of physics just get me some technology up in there! Anthologies would be great. I also don’t care which year the books were released.
3. Like Shadow and Act says, the German film Transfer has the potential to SUCK so badly. Or not:Rich Whites Pay To Have Their Souls Deposited Into The Bodies Of Poor Blacks In Sci-Fi Drama Transfer’
4. In the vein of something that one can look forward to with rather less trepidation:Watch Vogue’s Profile Of Up-And-Coming Kenyan Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu That would be the director who is bring Nnedi Okorafor’s epic Who Fears Death to the big screen. I cannot WAIT.
5. Speaking of Ms. Okorafor…Akata Witch is coming: April 14, 2011. And for those of us who are impatiently waiting, she has a short story up at Tor.
6. The last several posts at Beyond Victoriana has been highly interesting. Go thou and read.
7. ITVS Future States has got its second season of shorts inquiring what America might be like in 25 to 50 years going up right now. They are free and pretty damned interesting. If you missed the firs season, that’s there too.
8. Did you know that Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was made into a BBC production? That is now on Hulu? Well, now you do.
9. Hell. Why not?
Take That – Kidz
Though that lens flare was rather overused, yes?
la la la lalala lalala la la la lalalala lalalala …
Oh, and one more thing:
10.Amanda Ray – Stronger
The best known PoC sf writer is Samuel R. Delany. I’d recommend Babel 17 (Linguistics); Triton (an ambiguous heterotopia); and Neveronya which is about the development of a techological world.
Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber is a planetary romance/first contact novel facilitated by technology.
Octavia Butler’s Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago are meet the alien who brings genetic engineering.
N.K. Jemisin is more fantasy than sf but still worth a look, sort of steamp punkish fantasy with sorta-superhero-sorta-gods.
Steve Barnes is perhaps the most sf of the PoC writers, but I have no specific recommendations.
Ted Chiang is a short story writer: he is most identified with fantasy but many of his short stories are tech heavy fantasy. There is a collection called Stories of Your Life and Others, and a new novella which is published as a book called The Lifecycle of Software Objects which is about engineering artificial life forms.
Two others whose work I know less well are Nisi Shawl and Andrea Hairston (Andrea is also a Professor of Performing Arts at Smith).
Thanks!!1 And I have acquired Andrea Hairston’s Mindscape so yeah!
Walter Mosley’s Futureland is decent cyberpunk.
John Ridley’s What Fire Cannot Burn / Those Who Walk in Darkness duology are high action, high technology mutant hunting adventures.
Karin Lowachee’s Warchild and Burndive are pretty effective space operas.
A. Lee Martinez’s The Automatic Detective is an awesome neo-noir pulp adventure about a robot detective in an art-deco futureland.
I’ll also second general recs for Samuel Delany, Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, and Nalo Hopkinson.
I appreciate the recs!
Charisma by Steven Barnes, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, Red Spider, White Web by Misha, Mindscape by Andrea Hairston
Thanks, I really appreciate it!
No mention of octavia butler?
Actually, Octavia Butler was mentioned. ;)