So Long Been Dreaming : Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy

Rating:
Summary: The way to the stars
Review: Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan have joined forces to produce a powerful and insightful anthology of Science Fiction literature from a broad spectrum of experience and (counter) experience. Please note, Amazon doesn't credit Boston-based professor Mehan (who teaches at Emerson College) with having much to do with this book, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out he had just as much say in assembling the contents as did his co-editor, Nalo Hopkinson, the famous novelist of Canada whom many credit as being the "next Octavia Butler." Together they make an imposing duo and they are wise indeed both in what they decided to do for and the people to whom they appealed for new work. The result is smashing and one of the very best books of 2004.

Wayde Compton's "fairy tale" is almost too beautiful to describe. A "growing ball of light as bright as a sky full of half moons" appears to our hero and tells him that his name is Mr. Polaris. By the way, the hero is called Lacuna and thus describes the position of writers of color, often, marginalized within the already marginalized community of science fiction. That is, it's a world filled with its own rules and domains, yet those in charge of the dominant culture regard it with skepticism and even violence, based on the fear of losing their own Antaean strength--the exploring strength of the colonizer.

The blind Victorian writer Celu Amberstone contributes a diaristic and chilling account of a mother-daughter relationship gone tragically wrong. In this brief and pointillistic tale, the daughter is called "Sleek" and she is almost like the spirit of the mother before society's pressures (and the pressures of colonization) took the free will out of her. The months and the days are each given beautiful and poetic names. The penultimate entry will bring tears to your eyes--even if you are a rock.

I wish I had time to list all the stories and what makes them good. Before I sign off I could add that, although Compton and Amberstone are both Canadian, the anthology has many writers from other parts of North America too, including the USA, as well as from other parts of the world. This world--our world. The editors have skillfully suggested to their readers the ways in which all science fiction embodies aspects both of colonizing and post colonialist teleology. It's an eye opener. Hooray for Arsenal Pulp for bringing us the news in this handsome and durabe volume.