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A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction on WWEnd!
In our quest to bring you the best books in genre fiction we continue to add new awards and lists to WWEnd. When we decide it’s time for a new one we start looking at the holes in our coverage on the site and we try to find a ready list to fill those gaps. But it can’t be just any ‘ol list. We want to find the best possible list from a reputable source that the genre community recognizes as knowledgeable and authentic.
In this case we wanted to add a black authors list to WWEnd, and given what’s going on in our world with the Black Lives Matter movement, we wanted it to be a really great list. That’s when we discovered Nisi Shawl’s excellent list: A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction. Reputable, knowledgeable, and authentic? Check, check, and check. We reached out to Nisi and after a lovely Zoom chat we received permission to add the list to WWEnd!
If you are not familiar with it, A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction is “an annotated list of 40+ black science fiction works that are important to your understanding of its history.” Nisi writes that some of these works could be construed as fantasy rather than science fiction because “…it’s sometimes difficult to understand the history of black science fiction without reference to the history of black fantasy.”
In addition to the list, which originally appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #233, Nisi has written articles about most of the books. Since then, the articles have appeared in the Tor.com blog, and she is slowly adding them to the Carl Brandon Society blog. We have linked to those articles from the individual book pages on WWEnd so you can read about their significance to the ever-growing black science fiction canon.
Our many and profound thanks to Nisi Shawl for graciously allowing us to reproduce the list here. We hope you enjoy the books and will help us share this important resource with the community at large.
4 Comments
Excellent- thank you!
Excellent list! I love that even of the authors I am familiar with, some of the suggestions are off the beaten path for them.
It really is a great list. Be sure to click through to Nisi’s articles for details about the selections.
I was looking for a change of genre after being loyal to fantasy and science fiction. To me, black science fiction and black fantasy are totally new genres that I’ve never read. This is an excellent list of books, and I’ve decided to start with Kindred. And then, Bloodchild. The rest will follow suit.
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