Friday Black

Finished February 10

Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This dark collection of stories had me both wanting more and needing to take breaks from reading. This is the debut collection for the author, and draws on his own experiences as a black man in the United States for some of his themes. The collection contains twelve stories, with some characters reappearing in other tales. 

The first story, The Finkelstein 5, draws on racism, white privilege, miscarriage of justice, and frustration at all these societal flaws. The second tale, Things My Mother Said, touches on poverty and religion. The third, The Era takes us further into dystopia with revisionist history, genetic selection, and bullying. Lark Street deals with abortion, relationships, and the onus on women. The Hospital Where has elements of pain and wonder set around healthcare and the things we do for our dreams. Zimmerland makes racism and violence a form of entertainment where there are no consequences. Friday Black takes us to a surreal dystopian version of Black Friday sales, where bodies are swept to the sides as sales take precedence. The Lion & The Spider takes African folklore, family responsibility, and takes us to the backroom of retail. Light Spitter has elements on incel culture, school shootings, and trying to change outcomes. How to Sell a Jacket As Told by Iceking brings us back to the characters and world of Friday Black on a less dark day. The following story, In Retail, is in the same world, but from a different point of view. The final story, Through the Flash, is set in a world where the days reset over and over, death and violence are ever present, and the characters are aware of it, and hope for a glitch in the system. 

These are dark stories, offering little hope for the future, but also stories that are gripping and captivating. Many of them relate to the world even more today than when they were written. 

The Flood

Finished June 18
The Flood by David Sachs

This disaster novel has a dystopian feel to it. As the book begins, there has been a massive (9.6 on the Richter scale) earthquake in Antarctica and a massive carving of the ice shelf. These events have caused tsunamis going up all oceans from there, and there are reports of massive loss of life from the Southern hemisphere.
In New York City, emergency measures have asked everyone to evacuate and Travis awoke to this news, made his way on foot to his ex-wife, Corrina, and son, Darren, and they along with Corrina's husband Gerry have made their way to the piers where all ships and boats available are taking on people for the evacuation. The four make it onto a cruise ship, and the ship heads out to sea, encountering the bump of the tsunami wave out there, where is it much less devastating. They believe all is well, but when they encounter another ship that has come under the control of people with violence in mind, things change completely.
They are left with a stranded ship, cut off from outside communications, and with most of the ship's officers dead. As the passengers and refugees come together to manage the aftermath, leadership clashes and resentment over the division of supplies, along with no signs of rescue, cause things to quickly slip into an untenable situation.
This book looks at human reaction to disaster, the urge by some to help others and the urge by others to help themselves. We see how some can stay calm and others quickly become panicked. Travis, as a paramedic, is more the calm, thoughtful type, used to dealing with rapidly changing situations. Others, caught up in their own image of importance breed resentment and create divisions unnecessarily. This book will make you think about how you react to situations, as well.
The writing is great, and the main characters have complexity that makes the plot even more interesting.

In Other Worlds

Finished November 27
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
This book was a thoroughly enjoyable read. This is a book that while discussing speculative fiction, science fiction, their definitions and histories, also discusses Atwood's personal experiences around them. Atwood's reading, writing, and reviewing of these forms the core of the book.
Atwood has broken the book into three parts. The first part deals with her personal experiences and consists of her previously unpublished Ellman Lectures from 2010. The second part collects several of Atwood's reviews of works in the speculative and science fiction genres. The third part has tributes by Atwood to the genre in form of short pieces. She also includes a letter to a school district where her book The Handmaid's Tale was challenged in favor of intellectual freedom, and a discussion of cover art from a book series in the 1930s.
I found this a very personal experience, full of Atwood's usual openness and humour. She is a writer who knows her stuff and this book shows how she thinks about these genres. She looks at the history and gives examples and different points of view, and continuously uses her own experiences as a reflective tool. Her humour comes through again and again, and I found that made it even more personal. While the issues brought to the fore through speculative and science fiction are often serious ones, and need to be taken seriously and addressed, there are also things we can do to lighten the load. I love her sense of humour and also loved finding out about works I hadn't come across before. One line she quoted from Visa for Avalon by Bryher stuck with me "If an individual's right to a place of his own were not respected," Robinson muses, "it was the first link in a chain that would ultimately lead to the elimination of the unwanted by any group that happened to be in power." If that doesn't speak to the current Occupy movement, what does!
I also loved her take on works I was familiar with, and enjoyed nodding in agreement or wanting to go back and take a second look.
Well worth the read, and although I read this as a library book, I think I shall have to go buy my own copy now.