From Powells.com
Staff recommendations, guest essays, and curated reading lists.
Staff Pick
N.K. Jemisin's unforgettable collection of short stories inspired by the Afrofuturistic musical visions of Janelle Monáe, How Long 'Til Black Future Month? imagines Black people in speculative and futuristic sci-fi worlds with gripping detail and voices resounding with fierce hope. Jemisin, a self-proclaimed sci-fi nerd, said about the collection, "How terrifying it's been to realize no one thinks my people have a future. And how gratifying to finally accept myself and begin spinning the futures I want to see." And what futures she spins! Recommended By Alexis B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin sharply examines modern society in her first collection of short fiction.
N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories, Jemisin equally challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.
Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.
Review
"[E]loquently develops a series of passionately felt themes....one of speculative fiction's most thoughtful and exciting writers." Kirkus (Starred Review)
Review
"Read her books — they're probably better than whatever else you were going to read next." Literary Hub
Review
"The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation....Jemisin seems able to do just about everything." New York Times
Review
"The most critically acclaimed author in contemporary science fiction and fantasy." GQ
Review
"Powerful and mind-expanding...Jemisin pushes boundaries, experiments with format and theme, and challenges expectations." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
About the Author
N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who won the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Fifth Season, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2015, and the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Obelisk Gate. She previously won the Locus Award for her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her short fiction and novels have been nominated multiple times for Hugo, World Fantasy, Nebula, and RT Reviewers’ Choice awards, and shortlisted for the Crawford and the James Tiptree, Jr. awards. She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times, and you can find her online at nkjemisin.com.