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nellasbookplanet · 1 year ago

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Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves at the center of this presence, attempting to shepherd an alien ambassador as chaos spreads in the city. A strange novel that mixes the supernatural with the alien, shifts between many different POVs, and gives a one of a kind look at a possible first contact.

Nubia: The Awakening (Nubia series) by Omar Epps & Clarence A. Hayes

Young adult. Three teens living in the slums of an enviromentally ravaged New York find that something powerful is awakening within them. They’re all children of refugees of Nubia, a utopian African island nation that sank as the climate worsened, and realize now that their parents have been hiding aspects of their heritage from them. But as they come into their own, someone seeks to use their abilities to his own ends, against their own people.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when the ship throws her a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Young adult. A century ago, an astronomer discovered a possibly Earth-like planet. Now, a team of veteran astronauts and carefully chosen teenagers are preparing to embark on a twenty-three year trip to get there. But space is dangerous, and the team has no one to rely on but each other if - or when - something goes wrong. An introspective slowburn of a story, this focuses more on character work than action.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

After the planet Sadira is left uninhabitable, its few survivors are forced to move to a new world. On Cygnus Beta, they work to rebuild their society alongside their distant relatives of the planet, while trying to preserve what remains of their culture. Focused less on hard science or action, The Best of All Possible Worlds is more about culture, romance and the ethics and practicalities of telepathy.

Mirage (Mirage duology) by Somaiya Daud

Young adult. Eighteen-year-old Amani lives on an isolated moon under the oppressive occupation of the Valthek empire. When Amani is abducted, she finds herself someplace wholly unexpected: the royal palace. As it turns out, she's nearly identical to the half-Valthek, and widely hated, princess Maram, who is in need of a body double. If Amani ever wants to make it back home or see her people freed from oppression, she will have to play her role as princess perfectly. While sci-fi, this one more has the vibe of a fantasy.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon

The planet Swazembi is a utopia of color and beauty, the most beautiful of all its citizens being the Rare Indigo. Lileala was just named Rare Indigo, but her strict yet pampered life gets upended when her beautiful skin is struck by a mysterious sickness, leaving it covered in scars and scabs. Meanwhile, voices start to whisper in Lileala's mind, bringing to the surface a past long forgotten involving her entire society.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed duology) by Octavia E. Butler*

In a bleak future, Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a gated community, one of few still safe places in a time of chaos. When her community falls, Lauren is forced on the run. As she makes her way toward possible safety, she picks up a following of other refugees, and sows the seeds of a new ideology which may one day be the saviour of mankind. Very bleak and scarily realistic, Parable of the Sower will make you both fear for mankind and regain your hope for humanity.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

War Girls (War Girls duology) by Tochi Onyebuchi

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds duology) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s a catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled-off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Eart trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin*

In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter. While mostly fantasy in genre, this series does have some sci-fi flavor, and is genuinely some of the best books I've ever read, please read them.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine's mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die.

The Blood Trials (The Blood Gifted duology) by N.E. Davenport

After Ikenna's grandfather is assasinated, she is convinced that only a member of the Praetorian guard, elite soldiers, could’ve killed him. Seeking to uncover his killer, Ikenna enrolls in a dangerous trial to join the Praetorians which only a quarter of applicants survive. For Ikenna, the stakes are even higher, as she's hiding forbidden blood magic which could cost her her life. Mix of fantasy and sci-fi. While I didn’t super vibe with this one, I suspect fans of action packed romantasy will enjoy it.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

1960s classic. Rydra Wong is a space captain, linguist and poet who is set on learning to understand Babel-17, a language which is humanity's only clue at the enemy in an interstaller war. But Babel-17 is more than just a language, and studying it may change Rydra forever.

Pet (Pet duology) by Akwaeke Emezi

Young adult novella. Jam lives in a utopian future that has been freed of monsters and the systems which created and upheld them. But then she meets Pet, a dangerous creature claiming to be hunting a monster still among them, prepared to stop at nothing to find them. While I personally found the word-building in Pet lacking, it deftly handles dark subjects of what makes a human a monster.

Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

Alternate history in which Africans colonized South America while vikings colonized the North. The vikings sell abducted Celts and Franks as slaves to the South, one of which is eleven-years-old Irish boy Aidan O'Dere, who was just bought by a Southern plantation owner.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Young adult dystopia. Ellie lives in a future where humanity is under the control of the alien Ilori. All art is forbidden, but Ellie keeps a secret library; when one of her books disappears, she fears discovery and execution. M0Rr1S, born in a lab and raised to be emotionless, finds her library, and though he should deliver her for execution, he finds himself obsessed with human music. Together the two embark on a roadtrip which may save humanity.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Lelah lives in future Botswana, but despite money and fame she finds herself in an unhappy marriage, her body controlled via microchip by her husband. After burying the body of an accidental hit and run, Lelah's life gets worse when the ghost of her victim returns to enact bloody vengeance.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Young adult. Fen de la Guerre, living in a quarantined Gulf Coast left devestated by storms and sickness, is forced on the run with a newborn after her tribe is attacked. Hoping to get the child to safety, Fen seeks to get to the other side of the wall, she teams up with a scientist from the outside the quarantine zone.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Space opera. Enitan just wants to live a quiet life in the aftermath of a failed war of conquest, but when her lover is killed and her sister kidnapped, she's forced to leave her plans behind to save her sister.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: The City We Became (Great Cities duology) by N.K. Jemisin, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

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venndaai · 25 days ago

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the wonderful @neuxue and I think @stripedroseandsketchpads ? (so sorry if it was someone else I'm forgetting!) tagged me in a "10 books you want to read in 2025" meme, back in... December... and uh. I might finally have some time to read over the next few months? so I'm posting this in hopes it spurs me to read, maybe!

Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand, Samuel R Delany - I loved this science fiction book so sooooo much when I listened to the first 10 hours of it back in April, it was mindblowing and electrifying and I do desperately want to get back to it and then read everything else he's ever written. We'll see.

Adulthood Rites, Octavia Butler - I started reading the Xenogenesis trilogy so very long ago and I will finish it! I will! I will get back to the alien sex!

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Friere - it was embarrassing to have to admit at a party recently that I hadn't read this, so uh. Not the purest motivation but it will be good for me

Homeland, R.A. Salvatore - I'm still working on my Forgotten Realms Underdark campaign and some of my players have read Drizzt books so I have to try and force myself through this, lol. The first chapter was not easy but I will persevere

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes - picked this up at a book sale because I've always been fascinated by prehistory but never properly read about it. Read the prologue on a bus a few weeks ago. The prose is somewhat purple but it still brought me to tears. I love books by academics whose love for their subject bleeds through every word.

Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, by Lael Morgan. I'm about a third through this one and it's really, really good. Morgan is very frank about the economic and social realities governing women's lives in the 1890s, while also being infectiously delighted by colorful stories of determined women who took risks and succeeded on the fringes of society. She's also honest about the impact of the gold rush on Indigenous Canadian women. Also there are lots of pictures! I love photos of women from history looking pleased with themselves.

Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett- I enjoyed the Lymond books so much, it makes sense to keep going with the Niccolo series, but I admit I'm mostly motivated to read it to discover whatever insane additions she made to Lymond lore in it.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson. Recommended by a friend. I started listening to this one last year when I was very stressed out by the election and tbh, it's oddly comforting to hear about a time America was much more polarized than it is now, and also that for all the evils of that time and the messiness of the politics, the American people eventually refused to accept the continued existence of slavery. also a lot of the speeches are really good bangers

Heart: The City Beneath by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor - idk if rpgs count for this but I'm going to say they do! very grateful to @asimplecreature for reccing this to me because it looks so INCREDIBLY up my alley.

honestly, ten is an intimidating number, so I'm going to leave this at nine. that seems more manageable, somehow.

I was planning on tagging people way back when, but that might be a little weird to do now... ah, whatever. @semusepsu @cosmik-homo @bamboocounting @anghraine @lesbiandeancas @fluorescentbrains if you didn't do this meme back in 2024 and would like to talk about books you're hoping to read before the year's end that would be fun!

#ask memes

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fiercestpurpose · 9 months ago

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Science fiction does not have to be strictly allegorical. Something not being a perfect allegory is not necessarily a weakness in science fiction and might in fact be a strength.

In Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, the series opens with a nuclear war wiping out most of humanity. An alien race comes in and saves many humans, with ulterior motives. The colonizer/colonized relationship between the aliens and humans is therefore not the same as any colonizer/colonized relationship in history, as the aliens did in fact save many people from their species’s own destructive impulses. The point is not to reproduce a known scenario exactly, but to create an unknown scenario and ask questions about it.

In N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (which is fantasy), there is an oppressed class called the orogenes. The orogenes are controlled, discriminated against, violently murdered, and referred to with slurs. However, unlike real oppressed classes, the orogenes have magical powers that make them powerful and dangerous. The question here is “What if an oppressed class was dangerous? Would that make their oppression right? How else might the situation be handled?”

Speculative fiction (that is, science fiction/fantasy) is speculative. It’s about the what if. What if things were not the way they are but were different? What can this new scenario tell us? And in order for the new scenario to tell us something, we have to take it seriously on its own terms, rather than reducing it to a stand-in for something else.

Of course there is allegorical science fiction. And of course there is bad science fiction that represents things differently from how they are in real life without at all thinking through the implications of that. But writing a science fiction conceit off simply because it doesn’t perfectly match up to any real world scenario is a misunderstanding of what science fiction is and does.

#m.txt

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voyaging-too · 3 months ago

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Btw for sci-fi that does genuinely interesting, transgressive, morally alien things with consent, I suggest Octavia Butler, especially the Xenogenesis trilogy but also Fledgling. It's one of the few cases where the author being horny about their own worldbuilding doesn't stop them from thinking about its fairly horrifying implications, in fact it makes them more inspired to explore the horrifying implications. Obviously: all the trigger warnings.

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mightydyke · 9 months ago

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The Xenogenesis series is so fucking good. With each book, the ending gets more hopeful, the protagonist is less human and I found myself sympathising more with the Oankali and less with the humans (although I can't bring myself to "pick a side", Butler's portrayal of both is so nuanced and makes me feel so conflicted in the best way possible.) At first the Oankali are presented as colonisers, forcing the humans to mate with them and sterilising those who don't in a pretty clear parallel to eugenics, but in the second book this role is reversed when Akin is kidnapped by human resistors and they want to force him to be more human, trying to cut him off from his Oankali way of life. The scene that really drove this point in for me was when some humans were plotting to cut off the tentacles of those two Construct children, even though it could kill them. There's a reading group question about this in the back of my copy, about possible parallels between this and our own world, and yeah. FGM and the treatment of Native American children in residential schools spring to mind. It's crazy how astute Butler is and how this scene, which is about half-alien children, is still so true to life. But even then, there are sympathetic humans, like Tate and Gabe and Yori. They still make mistakes, but mostly out of a lack of understanding, like Tate not returning Akin to his family and Gabe interrupting him when he's healing Tate.

And the endings! Dawn: Lilith has been impregnated against her will, being led away by Nikanj, her plan to get to Earth and run away has failed. Adulthood Rites: Akin has secured the Mars colony for humans. Despite not being allowed to reproduce and live on Earth, the future of the human race is secured. The town Phoenix is burning, but there's still a sense of hope (also the symbolism of Phoenix adds to this hope. And it's so clever!! I love Butler's symbolism so much). Imago: Jodhas and Aaor have been accepted by a human village, Jodhas plants a seed that will grown into a town. Planting a seed is such a symbol of hope, but this seed will grow into a ship that will devour the Earth of resources, leaving it a husk. Also the different narrators! Lilith and Akin don't narrate their own stories directly, only Jodhas' story is written in the first-person. Lilith is human, Akin and Jodhas are half human, but Jodhas is an ooloi, which seem less human than male and female Oankali. Lilith wants humans to escape from the Oankali, and Akin fights for the humans to be allowed to continue to exist without breeding with the Oankali. But Jodhas is the opposite. It seduces humans into wanting to mate with it. It represents the gene-trade mission. Yet it's story is told in the first-person. I'll be honest, I felt sympathetic towards Jodhas whilst knowing that I probably shouldn't. I found it's relationship with Jesusa and Tomas to be very sweet, I was happy for it! When it didn't tell them that them staying with it throughout it's metamorphosis would hormonally bond them for life, I obviously saw it as terrible. To chemically bond someone to you for life without their consent is awful. And the way that the Ooloi are so good at convincing humans, like when Aaor and Jodhas go to Jesusa and Tomas' community and Aaor instantly gets mates! That humans would immediately want to mate with something they have been brought up to fear their whole lives shows the power of the Ooloi's manipulation. And yet I still feel compassion for them. Butler's writing creates empathy for every single character. The way she writes is as seductive and convincing as an Ooloi's scent.

#There's so much I could say about this series #The way that the village that Tomas and Jesusa come from represents Lilith's hope of humanity running away and breeding without Oankali #and how it gets destroyed by her own children #and Jesusa and Tomas blame HER for Jodhas not telling them about metamorphosis #also how the village is so obviously hierarchal and a representation of the human conflict #I loved this series so much #Octavia E Butler #xenogenesis trilogy #lillith's brood #Dawn #Adulthood Rites #Imago

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spookygibberish · 1 year ago

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@july-19th-club HI I just thought I'd respond to these EXTREMELY flattering tags because they were the push I needed to finally get around to listening to the Xenogenesis series. I've been meaning to check out Octavia Butler for a really long time, and after finishing those books I'm actually mad at myself for not getting around to it sooner, because like, holy shit.

Looking at the books I've enjoyed the most out of all the titles I've listened to in the last year, to picking out commonalities and trends, I came up with:

Explorations of speculative societies and cultures

Xenofiction! Inhuman perspectives, inhuman thought processes; monsters, aliens, and animals as perspective characters

Alienation. Relfect the experience of living in a society which is strange to you, persisting, finding value and beauty in a world that is ugly, complicated, and hostile

Body horror, shape-shifting, transhumanism

Surreal imagery and situations

Often violent, often sexual, (frequently both at once...). strongly visceral

Unsurprising preference for sci-fi over fantasy (it's much more prone to high concept strangeness, though on a surface level I like the trappings of fantasy more)

A LOT OF THESE ARE DOWNERS but I noticed there aren't a lot of straightforwardly bleak endings, I guess I can't resist that uncertain glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel... barring what they say about oncoming trains

Given all that it turns out Xenogenesis was baisically laser targeted to appeal to me and I'm incredibly grateful for these tags for nudging me to nudge Butler to the front of my queue.

#ive also already got at least one of my friends to start listening bc i NEED someone to talk to about these #also yes i have been cataloging my book listening and collecting exploits in spreadsheet form whats it to ya #catwings feels hilariously out of place on this i know but the audiobooks i have are narrated by Le Guin herself and they make a profoundly #cute and pleasant 2.5 ish hour listen #off topic #books

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dimetrodone · 1 year ago

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Xenogenesis/Lilith’s brood is a cycle of desperately needing human companionship while simultaneously fearing and hating ourselves and wanting to push away.

You keep wanting the aliens in this book to be entirely malicious or misunderstood based on how sympathetic you are to humans at the time but the aliens in the end of the day do a lot of the same awful things humans do just with a calm passive demeanour.

#very good and very bleak books so far #am still on the second book that is about a talking baby

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papenathys · 2 years ago

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To me Junker Seven by Olive J. Kelley, an antifascist sci-fi space opera about trans lesbians fighting against the Intergalactic Police, works really really well, because it perfectly captures the ethos of queer sci-fi, a subgenre that rose out of the entire idea of human "aliens" relating to the "aliens" or unfamiliar sci-fi creatures (same with postcolonial sci-fi and xenophobia narratives, like the aliens from Butler's Xenogenesis). The lesbian couple in Junker Seven are literally like aliens, fleeing and travelling across planets, trying to find queer allies to rebel against the fascist government. This is deliberately political sci-fi, sci-fi that allows queer hope to flourish but also gives a bombastic side eye to the idea of "escapism" by erasure of vital narratives of marginalization.

I've spoken about this with high fantasy too, and how some people glorify Samantha Shannon over Seth Dickinson or Shelley Parker Chan for making her worlds "queer normative", despite, you know, xenophobia and misogyny being very much a thing in her "comforting" universes. So there's no need for queer rebellion and protest- just romances or incidental background "casual rep" aka one that is comfortable and palatable to bear.

When genres with their own loaded political implications like sci-fi and horror are sanitized into little aesthetic packets: "cozy horror", "horror vibes but not really scary", "slice of life sci-fi" I'm like, cool, cute I guess, but I actually love to see political themes in these types of literature, because of the history of their evolution. Think Octavia Butler. Think southern gothic a la Toni Morrison. And I'm not shaming anyone for seeking comfort from the harshness of their realities in these "cozy" subgenres, but I'm just saying I love political art and literature and I love that Kelley is a nonbinary lesbian writing about nonbinary lesbians who fight and suffer and emerge victorious together in an entire dictatorial GALAXY of state sanctioned propaganda and violence. It's so refreshing after all the quirky cute romances.

#mimirants #not really #junker seven #olive j kelley #sci fi #science fiction #on writing #octavia butler #anti intellectualism #books #lgbtq #lesbian #nonbinary #literature

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thenixkat · 1 month ago

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I have yet to personally read Xenogenesis but I have read some stuff by Octavia Butler and read on some of her other stuff but if you think the fucking aliens that she wrote as colonizing slavers practicing forced breeding and eugenics on folks aren't actually doing that b/c ... you're horny for the aliens and refuse to engage with the deeper themes of the author's works then the books are not for you if yer just gonna be a horny racist about shit.

Like, yer not actually getting the story if yer choosing to ignore what the writer was trying to say just cause you wanna be a bigot.

#nix meows #xenogenesis #octavia butler #black science fiction #klandom #fandom critical

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tsunflowers · 8 months ago

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the seated ii wangechi mutu, 2019

ok I find her to be a little scary. but the combination of this alien and yet African face with the body covered in tendrils reminded me of octavia butler's xenogenesis trilogy

#museum musings

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rjalker · 1 year ago

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people really need to stop recommending books based purely on the fact that they're "Queer representation" of some kind.

Not only does it do a disservice to the story itself, because I guarentee you the author wanted their story to be remembered for more than having "x characters" and nothing more...

...but if you're going around blithely reccomending tons of random strangers read something like the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler based purely on the fact that some of the characters use it/its pronouns...

that's.

I'm sorry but that is just so negligent. That's the only word I can think to describe it. Xenogenesis is an adult science fiction story meant to be read by adults who are ready to have an incredibly serious conversation about slavery, eugenics, rape, genocide, and how consent literally cannot exist when you are a slave, and what that means for you and everyone around you.

It's not a fun casual adventure story anyone and everyone should be picking up without knowing what they're getting into. You have no idea how many people you're casually recommending this series to are victims of rape who are going to be triggered by scenes in this series, and you're not giving them any warning!

It's already bad enough for people to be flattening stories down into whether or not they have "X characters" but to not warn people about genuinely triggering content in the books you're flattening this way?? Why would you do that?

Please don't fucking do that. If you know a series deals with triggering topics then you need to warn people about that any time you recommend people read it. The Xenogenesis series requires trigger warnings for rape at the very least, and a whole lot more on top of that too, but that's the bare minimum.

Stop recommending people read things just because "characters use x pronouns in it" or "it has nonbinary characters" or "it has a lesbian in it" without any relevant warnings about triggering content it also contains.

At least the person who did this did specify that the it/its users in Xenogenesis are all aliens, but like, that's the least of things people need to be aware of before reading this trilogy.

Reccommend media by actually summarizing it. There's almost always an official summary you can find somewhere. Warn people about any topics that might be triggering that the content contains.

And, since I see this happen the most: for the love of fuck do not lie to people about Queer characters being in a series, or refuse to explain to people that the Queer characters that do exist are just the same old stereotypes we've all seen a million times, with nothing to balance them out and make them actually progressive.

That is going to accomplish nothing except alienating people who've been tricked into reading something that's not actually what they were told it was. You are not going to get anyone to enjoy a series by betraying them by lying about nonexistant or at best shallow, stereotypical, bioessentialist 'representation'.

The Animorphs does not have a single canon Queer character.

The Murderbot Diaries is just the exact same nonbinary robot stereotype that was old in the 90s, with no important human nonbinary characters at all despite there being seven whole books at this point. There are exactly 2 human characters who use neopronouns, but they're the epitome of "token characters". They appear for a combined total of maybe 10 pages, have no importance to the plot, and get shoved offscreen as quickly as possible, never to be seen again. All of the robots use it/its pronouns because they don't have genitals and Martha Wells is transmisic and loves biological essentliasm, and still very clearly equates sex with gender with pronouns. Despite the protagonist using it/its pronouns, no one ever asks anyone else for their pronouns, everyone just magically knows, because, again, biological essentialism. Also known as the exact opposite of representation for trans people.

The Xenogenesis trilogy does not have a single canon Queer character in it. All of the characters who use it/its pronouns are part of the third reproductive sex for the alien species.

Start recommending series based on what the plot is actually about, or what good things they have going for them, not just because they have characters who use XYZ pronouns or are the literal stereotype of a nonbinary robot.

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