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15 African-Inspired Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books:

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

Temper by Nicky Drayden

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson

Theonite by M. L. Wang

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

The Kishi by Antoine Bandele

Which of these books has your favorite African-based universe?

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Fantasy books written by women are often assumed to be young adult, even when those books are written for adults, marketed to adults, and published by adult SFF imprints. And this happens even more frequently to women of color.

This topic’s an ongoing conversation on book Twitter, and I thought it might be worth sharing with Tumblr. And by “ongoing,” I mean that people have been talking about this for years. Last year, there was a big blow up when the author R.F. Kuang said publicly that her book The Poppy War isn’t young adult and that she wished people would stop calling it such. If you’ve read The Poppy War, then you’ll know it’s grimdark fantasy along lines of Game of Thrones… and yet people constantly refer to The Poppy War as young adult – which is one of its popular shelves on Goodreads. To be fair, more people have shelved it as “adult,” but why is anyone shelving it as “young adult” in the first place? Game of Thrones is not at all treated this way…

Rebecca Roanhorse’s book Trail of  Lightning, an urban fantasy with a Dinétah (Navajo) protagonist has “young adult” as its fifth most popular Goodreads shelf. The novel is adult and published by Saga, an adult SFF imprint. 

S.A. Chakraborty’s adult fantasy novel City of Brass has “young adult” as its fourth most popular Goodreads shelf. 

Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand, an adult fantasy in a world based on Mughal India, has about equal numbers of people shelving it as “adult” or “young adult.” 

Book Riot wrote an article on this, although they didn’t address how the problem intersects with race. I also did a Twitter thread a while back where I cited these examples and some more as well. 

The topic of diversity in adult SFF is important to me, partly because we need to stop mislabeling the women of color who write it, and also because there’s a lot there that isn’t acknowledged! Besides, sometimes it’s good to see that your stories don’t just end the moment you leave high school and that adults can still have vibrant and interesting futures worth reading about. I feel like this is especially important with queer rep, for a number of reasons. 

Other books and authors in the tweets I screenshot include:

Witchmark by C.L. Polk

A Ruin of Shadows by L.D. Lewis

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Day Before by Liana Brooks

A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell

Shri, a book blogger at Sun and Chai

Vanessa, a writer and blogger at The Wolf and Books

TLDR: Women who write adult fantasy, especially women of color, are presumed to be writing young adult, which is problematic in that it internalizes diversity, dismisses the need and presence of diversity in adult fantasy, and plays into sexist assumptions of women writers. 

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the wrong amazon is burning and the wrong ice is melting

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The Black God’s Drums (2018)

In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air–in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.

Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.

by P. Djèlí Clark

Get it  now here

Born in New York and raised mostly in Houston, P. DJÈLÍ CLARK spent the formative years of his life in the homeland of his parents, Trinidad and Tobago. His writing has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Lightspeed, Tor.com and in print anthologies including Griots I & II, Steamfunk, Myriad Lands and Hidden Youth. The Black God’s Drums is his debut novella.

[Follow SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest]  

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I’m kind of horrified that so few articles about the fires in Brazil are mentioning the indigenous women’s march and indigenous people on the frontlines and occupying Brazilian government offices. Indigenous resistance to the destruction is happening, this isn’t being passively accepted.

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Character Art by Gwendigo

https://imgur.com/gallery/g7iMaAF

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Spring dream ✨ Prints

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WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.

Marshae Jones was shot in 2018 during an argument. She was 5-months pregnant at the time and the trauma ended the pregnancy. While charges were dropped against the shooter, the survivor, Marshae Jones is now being charged with manslaughter for starting the argument. Black and indigenous women are almost always the first targets of policies that attempt to steal autonomy over their own bodies from women. Marshae is clearly the victim in this situation, yet she now faces a hefty prison sentence for being shot. She is being held on a $50,000 bail. This is absolutely disgusting, and we must end both the system of cash bail and the prison industrial complex that seeks to criminalize black, brown, and working class white people at every opportunity. #SayHerName

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The Passenger (Detail), 1964 - Leonor Fini

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Amy Schumer tries to “prank” Kanye West by diving in front of him and pretending to pass out, Kanye reacts by walking away

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julia oldham, why are there no great female werewolves?

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I think a lot of married women realize their man’s lack of responsibility over the first year or so of marriage. Often it’s not bad enough to break anything off, especially when it’s just the two of you. Women think, fine I’ll pick up after him. No harm in throwing his laundry when I’m doing mine, picking up his socks when I’m cleaning, I’ll make his lunch since I am making mine, I’ll wake him up since I am already up early and make breakfast, I’ll call and set up his appointments since I am already setting mine. I think overtime what gets lost is how much work he has added to your life. But shit really hits the ceiling when you have kids and his lack of responsibility ends up meaning that not only is he not an equal partner, but that your man is another child to take care of, another mouth to feed. And it ends up being years before you fully realize this and by then you’ve been drained.

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Okay maybe mama did raise a fool

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I’m sorry aunt Augutsta, but I simply can’t come to dinner. My friend Bunbury is dreadfully invalid. He’s just had a call out post done about him and I have to comfort him on Skype.

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RIP RIP RIP i can never interact with my neighbor again holy fuck

i was outside w/ my cat just now. and he went behind a shrub for a bit, and me not realizing my neighbor was on the other side of that same shrub, poked my head round and said way louder than necessary, “my SCRUMPTIOUS darling boy, what ever are you doing over there??”

and this 40-something man i very rarely speak to handled it w/ remarkable grace and very tentatively responded “…..watering my.. roses? you?”

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I keep seeing posts insinuating that baby boomers don’t know what the modern workplace is like and how labour intensive it is, again maybe your parents don’t, but I guarantee you the senior citizens working at McDonald’s do. Please think a little.