I’m super curious about this genre. Nothing where children are hurt or threatened, though, or families are forcibly separated (I read while waiting for my little ones to fall asleep, and the last book I finished unexpectedly had that – it’s a little too traumatic for me!)
Thanks in advance!
by alpacalypse-llama
4 Comments
Apologies, I read so much that I’m not sure if any of these have your trigger warning…
*Rosewater* is an excellent Nigerian sci-fi series that features a young man who has been given powers of insight by a strange alien presence in the city. He works as a “finder” for the government and encounters conspiracy while also trying to figure out what exactly this alien *is.*
*The Memory Librarian* by Janelle Monae is a series of short stories set in her “Dirty Computer” universe. Some stories are more successful than others, but when it works, it WORKS.
Nnedi Okorafor is great for this. Although she styles herself an African Futurist, she writes about the future for particular, distinct cultures instead of a general ‘pan-african’ unity. I really love Binti, but it does have some kids dying. Remote Control or Noor might be better.
Emergency Skin by N.K Jemisin
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi
Dhalgren by Samuel Delany (warning for real weird)
Pretty much every Afrofuturism or Africanfuturism book I’ve read included family separation and harm to children. With themes of racism, colonialism, and slavery, it seems like this would be hard to do. Africanfuturism may be the more optimistic subgenre.
But I’m going through a list of authors in my head— Octavia E Butler, Samuel R Delany, Nnedi Okorafor, Marlon James, NK Jemisin, Tade Thompson, Rivers Solomon, Colson Whitehead, Nalo Hopkinson, Janelle E Monae, Nisi Shawl, P Djeli Clark, Jordan Ifueko—and I can’t think of anyone who did not include some of these traumatic events in their books. I haven’t read every novel and short story by them, though.
I am blanking on the author of a space opera books about child soldiers. Don’t read that one.
Thanks, everyone. I might wait to explore this genre when my kids are a bit bigger.