A Small Collection of Diverse SF Works What do “diverse futures” look like? Here is a brief list:
As our showcase of diverse works begins to respond to our new project--the founding of a US Latinx Science Fiction Collection in Special Collections of the Pollak Library at Cal State Fullerton--we have new works to add.
First, Richie Navarez's "Room for Rent" (2017), first published in the ground-breaking Latinx Rising Anthology edited by Matthew David Goodwin, now republished online at Uncharted Magazine.
Second, P. Djéli Clark's award-winning "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" (2018), from Fireside. Clark's blog post short essay on the story, "On Slavery, Magic, and the Negro Teeth of George Washington," is illuminating.
FEATURED FUTURE! "Tomorrow is Another Daze" (2020) by Ernest Hogan is new story by the author of the first Chicano sf novel, Cortez on Jupiter (1990). He spoke on our "Latinx SF" panel to celebrate the opening of our Exhibit at 1pm on October 29, 2020.
FEATURED FUTURE! "An Excerpt from Everfair" (2016) by Nisi Shawl, brings us into her spectacular debut novel, a Retro-Afrofuturist vision of an alternative steampunk African colonial past. Shawl spoke on our co-sponsored panel, "Future Fictions," for the Innovative Arts Futures Conference on the CSUF campus, Dec. 3rd, 2020.
Luis Valdez, Los Vendidos (1967, brief one-act play). Early, fabulous Chicano sf text. First performed in Elysian Park, East L.A. Valdez founded El Teatro Campesino as part of César Chávez’s United Farm Workers movement. Check out the Chicano robots! (You can find performances of the play archived online as well, if you get interested in this--as you should be!)
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” (1984). Hugo and Nebula Award winning story by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and essential Afrofuturist writer who grew up in Pasadena. The roots of power dynamics and love are explored in a story of humans enslaved on an alien world. Want more? Here's a link to "Speech Sounds," a sf story set in a future, dystopic L.A. in which humanity is losing its ability to communicate.
Gloria Anzaldúa, “Interface” (1987, poem). A funny love poem about a queer woman and her alien lover, where it's not clear which aspect makes them more outsiders. Written by an essential scholar of the cultural "borderlands" of the Chicana, Feminist, and Queer movements. Here is a link to Anzaldūa reading her poem. Also on this page, she reads her short sf story "Puddles," which thinks about the contagions we share with one another. And here is a link to a download of a short chapter, "La conciencia de la mestiza/Toward a New Consciousness," from Anzaldúa's necessay Borderlands/La Frontera.
Ken Liu, “Mono No Aware” (2012). Hugo winning story by inventor of “Silkpunk,” an Asian-American sf movement, and award-winning translator of important Chinese sf texts that have raised the profile of international Asian sf.
Rebecca Roanhorse, “Welcome to Your Authentic Native American Experience™” (2017). Hugo and Nebula Award story by a writer of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo heritage who is a chief proponent of the emerging "Indigenous Futurisms" movement.
Further Reading: Longer Works. For more ambitious readers, here is a handful of novels (five to match our short works above!) of interest to diverse SoCal Futurisms that you can seek out:
Ernest Hogan, Cortez on Jupiter (1990). Fast-paced and funny. The first Latinx sf novel, ever! By a self-proclaimed "Chicanonautica" writer. Set in L.A. (and on Jupiter).
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993). Acclaimed first in series. Set in L.A. A dark, but visionary and profound study of our future.
Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange (1997). Short postmodern work with sf bent, set in L.A., and representative of the rich diversity of Southern California in its colorful cast of characters.
Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life” (novella, 1998). Nebula winner. Basis for Oscar-nominated Arrival. How do we speak to aliens who do not even live in the world or in time as we do?
N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (2015). First in the acclaimed Broken Earth series. All three works in the series won Nebulas, setting a record for wins. Brings issues of diversity to play in a world beset by severe climate change.