Reading for Fun and Pleasure: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Dark Matter

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

Introduction: Looking for the Invisible -- Sister Lilith / Honorée Fanonne Jeffers -- The Comet / W.E.B. Du Bois -- Chicago 1927 / Jewelle Gomez -- Black No More (excerpt from the novel) / George S. Schuyler -- separation anxiety / Evie Shockley -- Tasting Songs / Leone Ross -- Can You Wear My Eyes / Kalamu ya Salaam -- Like Daughter / Tananarive Due -- Greedy Choke Puppy / Nalo Hopkinson -- Rhythm Travel / Amiri Baraka -- Buddy Bolden / Kalamu ya Salaam -- Aye, and Gomorrah ... / Samuel R. Delany -- Ganger (Ball Lightning) / Nalo Hopkinson -- The Becoming / Akua Lezli Hope -- The Goophered Grapevine / Charles W. Chesnutt -- The Evening and the Morning and the Night / Octavia E. Butler -- Twice, at Once, Separated / Linda Addison -- Gimmile's Songs / Charles R. Saunders -- At the Huts of Ajala / Nisi Shawl -- The Woman in the Wall / Steven Barnes -- Ark of Bones / Henry Dumas -- Butta's Backyard Barbecue / Tony Medina -- Future Christmas (excerpt from the novel The Terrible Twos) / Ishmael Reed -- At Life's Limits / Kiini Ibura Salaam -- The African Origins of UFOs (excerpt from the novel) / Anthony Joseph -- The Astral Visitor Delta Blues / Robert Fleming -- The Space Traders / Derrick Bell -- The Pretended / Darryl A. Smith -- Hussy Strutt / Ama Patterson -- Racism and Science Fiction / Samuel R. Delany -- Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction / Charles R. Saunders -- Black to the Future / Walter Mosley -- Yet Do I Wonder / Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid -- The Monophobic Response / Octavia E. Butler

Africa Risen

From award-winning editorial team Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora. A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country's ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits her grandmother's ability to change her appearance--and perhaps the world. Created in the legacy of the seminal, award-winning anthology series Dark Matter, Africa Risen celebrates the vibrancy, diversity, and reach of African and Afro-Diasporic SFF and reaffirms that Africa is not rising--it's already here.

Kindred

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

The Hunger Games

The acclaimed author of the New York Times-bestselling Underland Chronicles series delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in a stunning novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to the present.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

After her mother's mysterious death, a young woman is summoned to the floating city of Sky in order to claim a royal inheritance she never knew existed in the first book in this award-winning fantasy trilogy from the NYT bestselling author of The Fifth Season. Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. 

Divergent

This first book in Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy is the novel the inspired the major motion picture starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Kate Winslet. This dystopian series set in a futuristic Chicago has captured the hearts of millions of teen and adult readers. Perfect for fans of the Hunger Games and Maze Runner series, Divergent and its sequels, Insurgent and Allegiant, are the gripping story of a dystopian world transformed by courage, self-sacrifice, and love.

Children of Blood and Bone

With five starred reviews, Tomi Adeyemi's West African-inspired fantasy debut, and instant #1 New York Times Bestseller, conjures a world of magic and danger, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir. They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise.

The Belles (the Belles Series, Book 1)

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orleans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orleans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful. But it's not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite, the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orleans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land.

The Water Dancer

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her--but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. 

Rick Riordan Presents Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from the tragedy. But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it--is that a doll?--and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world. Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left Black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, 

Scythe

Two teens must learn the "art of killing" in this Printz Honor-winning book, the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology. A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life--and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control. Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe--a role that neither wants. These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own. Scythe is the first novel of a thrilling new series by National Book Award-winning author Neal Shusterman in which Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price.

An Ember in the Ashes

 Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.   Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.   It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire's impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They've seen what happens to those who do.   But when Laia's brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire's greatest military academy.   There, Laia meets Elias, the school's finest soldier--and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he's being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined--and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself. 

Dark Matter

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

Introduction: Looking for the Invisible -- Sister Lilith / Honorée Fanonne Jeffers -- The Comet / W.E.B. Du Bois -- Chicago 1927 / Jewelle Gomez -- Black No More (excerpt from the novel) / George S. Schuyler -- separation anxiety / Evie Shockley -- Tasting Songs / Leone Ross -- Can You Wear My Eyes / Kalamu ya Salaam -- Like Daughter / Tananarive Due -- Greedy Choke Puppy / Nalo Hopkinson -- Rhythm Travel / Amiri Baraka -- Buddy Bolden / Kalamu ya Salaam -- Aye, and Gomorrah ... / Samuel R. Delany -- Ganger (Ball Lightning) / Nalo Hopkinson -- The Becoming / Akua Lezli Hope -- The Goophered Grapevine / Charles W. Chesnutt -- The Evening and the Morning and the Night / Octavia E. Butler -- Twice, at Once, Separated / Linda Addison -- Gimmile's Songs / Charles R. Saunders -- At the Huts of Ajala / Nisi Shawl -- The Woman in the Wall / Steven Barnes -- Ark of Bones / Henry Dumas -- Butta's Backyard Barbecue / Tony Medina -- Future Christmas (excerpt from the novel The Terrible Twos) / Ishmael Reed -- At Life's Limits / Kiini Ibura Salaam -- The African Origins of UFOs (excerpt from the novel) / Anthony Joseph -- The Astral Visitor Delta Blues / Robert Fleming -- The Space Traders / Derrick Bell -- The Pretended / Darryl A. Smith -- Hussy Strutt / Ama Patterson -- Racism and Science Fiction / Samuel R. Delany -- Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction / Charles R. Saunders -- Black to the Future / Walter Mosley -- Yet Do I Wonder / Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid -- The Monophobic Response / Octavia E. Butler