Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

General, Science Fiction

Dark Matter

I’m in the process of reading the anthology Dark Matter : A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas. I’m finding it both enjoyable, confusing in places and extremely challenging all at the same time. There are short stories and essays in the collection.

Derrick Bell’s short story “The Space Traders” (1992) has been my favourite so far. A story about an alien offer to the US for technology and resources to solve their financial, ecological and energy problems in exchange for all the African Americans living in the US. Some challenging material on the nature of democracy, business, government, racism, slavery and pragmatism in it.

Samuel R. Delany’s essay “Racism and Science Fiction” (1999) is an interesting read too. (Maybe this was picked up by the Star Trek Deep Space 9 episode Far Beyond the Stars)

If you have a chance track the collection down in the local library.