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Happy Pride Month, shipmates, though I think with overwhelming consent we’ve skipped straight to Wrath. It’s Alex, with some genre news and another list of books from Black authors you should really check out. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and load your flintlocks with all the kindness they can hold.
Looking for something you can do to help? blacklivesmatter.card.co
Totally unrelated happy thing: You can stream The Merry Wives of Windsor from the Globe Theater until June 14. They did a fun 1930s-setting for this one.
News and Views
Must read essay: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: The Duty of the Black Writer During Times of American Unrest
Freebird Books is offering sets of N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy for $30 to go to the NYC Books Through Bars program.
Speaking of N.K. Jemisin, now is a really good time to read her short story, The Ones Who Stay and Fight
Nicky Drayden has posted a short story for free on her Patreon: The Horse Women of Cincinnati
Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis burned down during the protests; they’re running a GoFundMe to rebuild.
Strange Horizons, which has a long tradition of publishing new and global SFF stories (and now translations as well) is running its yearly fundraising drive.
Congratulations to the winners of the Lambda Literary Awards! Of particular interest to us:
- The Deep by Rivers Solomon, et al., won for LGBTQ SF/F/H
- The Grief Keeper by Alexandre Villasante won for LGBTQ YA
- Aurora’s Angel by Emily Noon won for Lesbian Romance
K.A. Doore has done a round up of queer adult SFF published in 2020 for Pride Month!
June 2 was the 100th birthday of Bob Madle, who named the Hugo Awards.
On Book Riot
Science Fiction for Early Readers: The Fantastic World of Dinosaur Train
This week’s SFF Yeah! is about anime and manga.
Enter before the end of the month and you could win a 1-year subscription to Audible or a $250 Barnes and Noble gift card.
Free Association Friday: Supporting Black SFF Authors Part 2
Let’s do this again, from the top. The best way to support writers is to buy their books (or get them from the library), read them, share them, review them. Here’s another set that you should definitely check out.
And this list is still non-exhaustive. We could do this all day.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi – A Black girl with psychic powers holds the fate of LA in her hands when her brother is arrested.
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson – A mixed-race girl named Immanuelle tries fit in by following a life of absolute conformity and worship in her puritanical village. But when the spirits of the wood give her the diary of her long-dead mother, she begins to learn the grim truth about her village… and find the power within herself.
The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow – In an alien-controlled world where books and music are illegal thanks to a little misunderstanding that caused the death of one third of the world’s population, a human teenager and an alien commander bond over the power of music.
Slay by Brittney Morris – A Black teenager who is also a game developer must fight to save her creation, SLAY, from racist media smears and a determined online troll.
Lakewood by Megan Giddings – After her grandmother dies, Lena is forced to drop out of college and support her family. Luckily, she finds a good-paying job at Lakewood, a place that hosts the cutting edge of pharmeceutical and medical research. All she has to do is keep her mouth shut about what the research is doing to its subjects, many of whom are Black like her—because that’s the price of progress, right?
The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion – Arika lives in a world rebuilt in the aftermath of World War III, where race is caste and she’s privileged to become a Record Keeper for the Kongo. And she’s about to learn that everything she thought was true is a lie.
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin – A biting, incredibly dark comedy set in a very-near-future America where Jim Crow has returned with a vengeance. A Black man obsesses over obtaining a “complete demelaniztion” procedure for his dark-skinned son in hopes of him having a brighter future.
Given by Nandi Taylor – Dragon children are so rare that each dragon only has one soul mate… but this dragon’s soul mate is a princess too busy trying to save her people to have time for him.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna – Sixteen-year-old Deka’s worst fear comes to pass when, in the blood ceremony that will let her fully join her village, her blood runs gold. She can submit to the fate dictated by her impurity if she stays in her village–or she can join an army of girls like her to fight the emperor that threatens her land.
The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow – In an alien-controlled world where books and music are illegal thanks to a little misunderstanding that caused the death of one third of the world’s population, a human teenager and an alien commander bond over the power of music.
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson – Phyllis is lured from Harlem to the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she becomes a knife for hire that strikes fear into the hearts of even the most powerful. But after ten years, her own history—and the history of her people—is about to catch up with her.
See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.