Black Gate

I’ve spent much of 2019 in a lengthy tour of modern space opera, and it’s been very eye-opening. I’m getting ready to wrap up and turn my attention to another subgenre (YA thriller? Weird Western? SF noir? So many to choose from!), but I can squeeze in one more, I think. And that’s likely to be Michael Cobley’s Splintered Suns, since the reviews I’ve read certainly make it sound like it’s got the goods. Namely lost artifacts, narrow escapes, ancient mysteries, and — especially! — giant space monsters. Here’s a sample from the January review at The Tattooed Book Geek.

Captain Brannan Pyke of the Ship, Scarabus and his riff-raff and ragtag crew… are contracted by their employer Van Graes to steal a tracking device, the Angular Eye from the City of Cawl-Vesh on the desert planet Ong. Van Graes is a collector of ancient alien artefacts and he hopes that The Angular Eye can be used to locate the wreck of an ancient ship and the wealth of knowledge and treasure that it holds. Millennia ago, the ship, the Mighty Defender of the Arraveyne Empire was the only ship to escape the collapse of the Arraveyne Imperium. However, during the escape, the ship caught the attention of the Damaugra (a mythical sentient metal monster made of coils and tentacles). The Damaugra relentlessly chased the ship through space, damaging it beyond repair and causing it to crash on the planet Ong. Where its wreckage has remained buried and hidden in the vast desert ever since.

I’m pretending that I’m interested because of the rich backstory and powerful mythic overtones, but really I was sold the moment I read mythical sentient metal monster and tentacles. Read into that what you will.

If you’re looking for a more balanced (i.e. tentacle-free) review, here’s Eric Brown in his December wrap-up of the best new SF at The Guardian.

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Here’s a not very shocking statement: we still need to focus on diversity in sci-fi and fantasy.

My hope is that many of you will read that and think, Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. But I imagine many of you would also agree with me that it needs to be said, given how many people still openly disagree with the push to see more works published by creators from marginalized groups, whether that marginalization is based on race, age, sexual orientation, etc.

Take an anthology like New Suns: Original Speculation Fiction by People of Color. The title openly proclaims the editor and publisher’s intent: to highlight PoC authors who are doing phenomenal work in SFF, in the same vein as the Disabled People Destroy series. The outpouring of support for these anthologies is awe-inspiring, especially considering the apparent risk, I suppose, in alienating some readers – often those who don’t acknowledge the need for these anthologies, and the smart business sense in producing them.

Some people, apparently, aren’t paying attention to trends in speculative fiction, or maybe not understanding why these trends exist. Collecting and producing works by authors from diverse groups is a response not just to a need, but to a burning desire for these works. The success of Black Panther and Captain Marvel are obvious examples of this, but we see it in prose fiction, comics, video games, and more. Uncanny Magazine raised almost $60,000 for Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction on Kickstarter last year, virtually tripling their funding goal. Why? People are tired of watching or reading stories about the same kinds of characters, in settings based on the same (dare I say it) Eurocentric framework.

Not everyone – there’s still a market for a rehashing of Tolkien or Brooks or Vance, if that’s your thing – but enough people to make this sort of thing viable. And authors like Rebecca Roanhorse, Fran Wilde, Nnedi, Okorafor, Saladin Ahmed, Bogi Takács and more aren’t just generating buzz because of their identities – it’s because they’re amazing creators, producing work that’s well-written AND fresh.

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