Monday, December 7, 2009

So Long Been Dreaming - Nalo Hopkinson & Uppinder Mehan

The full title of this book is So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy. This is an anthology edited by Hopkinson and Mehan. The authors of some stories in this collection seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. Others were pretty amazing. My two favorites were Delhi by Vandana Singh and Necahual by Tobias Buckell.

This anthology was focused on stories about societies after they'd been colonized. This seems to mean subjugated for most authors in the collection. Maybe that's a valid point of view, but some authors spread it on pretty thick. The stories weren't limited to space colonization, as one might assume for a collection with science fiction in the title. My favorite, Delhi, was very down to earth. Necahual was more traditional space opera, but still with overtones of how colonialism made an impact on earth. Necahual also illustrated how one good old science fiction standard could provide some valuable lessons. I really enjoyed this book. Highly recommended.

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