DARK MATTER: A CENTURY OF SPECULATIVE FICTION FROM THE AFRICAN DIASPORA EDITED BY SHEREE R. THOMAS

From Publishers Weekly The striking central metaphor that Thomas (who edits the literary journal Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora) chose for this first collection of SF stories and essays by black authors is "dark matter," the scientific term for a non-luminous form of matter not directly observed, but whose existence is deduced from its gravitational effects on other bodies. Ranging from Charles Chestnutt's self-parodying 1887 tale "The Goophered Grapevine," to more than a dozen brilliantly diverse selections dated 2000, this big anthology includes 26 stories and excerpts from two novels, as well as five thoughtful essays from the leading black authors in the field. Accurately observing in her introduction that black writers have been engaged with speculative fiction for far longer than is generally thought, Thomas hopes her collection will inspire more black authors to enter the field, since, as Walter Mosley observes in his essay "Black to the Future," this genre speaks clear