Octavia Butler once said, "There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns." And thus, New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Colour, edited by Nisi Shawl. It's a remarkable set of stories: varieties in genre and tone and settings and characters. Some of the authors are people whose work I've come across a bit (E. Lily Yu, Andrea Hairston) while many others I was only vaguely familiar with - and several whom I'd not heard of before. Which is generally a good sign, in an an...

I've really started getting into reading anthologies, and to be honest, I'm quite picky with them - I basically one read ones that are queer or PoC, as those are the themes I'm most interested in. Therefor, reading New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color was an absolute must.Nisi Shawl has done an amazing job collection stories, but as always with these collection, the quality does vary. I did find overall that even though the cover, at least to me, gives the impression that th...

Review also found at: https://danaandthebooks.com/2019/03/1...A few months back I posted about the cover release for New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color.  Rebellion Publishing was kind enough to also send over an advance reading copy for review.Fantastic anthology with a wonderful range of stories. While all seventeen stories brought something special to the anthology, the selection below are the ones that stood out to me during my read through. Now excuse me while I go loo...

All anthologies are uneven, but Nisi Shawl (who is a friend) is a superior editor, and there are many fine stories in this one. I want to single out Minsoo Kang's "The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" which is pure comedy (and comedy is especially hard to write). I don't know if Kang was drawing on the old Doonesbury cartoons of Honey translating for Duke or not, but that's certainly what the story made me think of. Other favorites: Jaymee Goh's "The Freedom of the Shifting Sea," which re-envi...

Themed anthologies are nothing new, of course, but New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color brings a little more to the table than most of 'em—a wider perspective than some collection about magical cats or alternative Nixons (both of which exist, by the way).In other words, Nisi Shawl's anthology does precisely what it says on the tin, as they say... these are all original sf stories, and are all by people of color (of colors other than the usual pink, that is). I did not find a...

I'm a massive spec fic fan (both reading and writing it), but I find some of the popular stuff gets samey: either in a cod-medieval, Game of Thrones, doorstop series way; or in a only-this-straight-white-spaceman-can-save-the-world way. So I'm glad this book exists. I didn't love all the stories – not because they're bad, they're just not my personal taste. Quite a few of them left me unsatisfied, asking more questions than were answered. Not necessarily a problem if you want a thought-provoking...

4.5 Really enjoyed all the new speculative fiction! Great concept - great variety - interesting themes!

This is one of the best short story anthologies I have ever read. Normally I don't have so many new favorites with an anthology because by its nature not every new author will work for you but so many of the ones in this collection did. Below I will briefly list the stories that stick out to me:The Virtue of Unfaifthful Translations by Minsoo Kang: This idea was perfect for the short story space and captivated me from beginning to end. Its a story about how two translators avoid a war but also h...

ARC through NetGalleyActual rating: 2.5/5New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Colour, edited by Nishi Shawl, assembles science fiction, fantasy and horror stories by new and veteran authors. I'm in the mood for more Sci-fi. And I appreciate good covers and this one looks stunning. Yoshi Yoshitani's art rocks. I wonder why more authors don't get their art from him.I have a love/hate relationship with anthologies. Let's face it - each anthology is a grab bag. In a batch of stories,

Even though I’m not the biggest reader of short story collections, I was really looking forward to this one. Speculative and science fiction are two of my most beloved genres and as a Latinx reader I was thrilled to see that this collection is exclusively written by people of color. And Levar Burton wrote the introduction- sign me up! As science fiction, fantasy, and the like become increasingly popular, these are the voices that we need to be hearing from now more than ever. Like any other shor...

An anthology of speculative fiction written by people of color. This was one of my kindle sale random adds. I knew nothing about the book prior to purchasing it and it was not on my tbr. It's a mixed bag with some stories capturing my attention more than others. I appreciated the varying points of view and a few of these stories were brilliant. Impressions on the stories were as follows:(view spoiler)[The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex - Light story about a cab driver that drives aliens thr...

This anthology of short stories had only two stories that I really liked. It’s probably not a coincidence that they were satirical. In “Tourist Industrial Complex” by Tobias S. Buckell intergalactic tourists come to New York in search of an authentic experience. My favorite story was “Come Home to Atropos” by Steven Barnes. The Caribbean island of Atropos has ordered an infomercial to be promoted to primarily white upper class markets. The island is offering a unique service, but it is strugglin...

We all know that short story anthologies can be a somewhat hit and miss affair, so I tend to go into them with much trepidation as well as anticipation. That said, it is one of the best ways to discover new authors and genres you may have been missing out on. Fortunately, this turned out to be one of the best and most enjoyable collections I've read in many moons, and I feel strongly that diversity is definitely a key player in that. The seventeen stories presented are from a wide range of genre...

I generally find anthologies tricky depending, as they do, on an editor’s goal for inclusion which may not match what I am hoping for. I also have an up and down affair with short stories as they take real skill to develop a world and characters in virtually no time at all- like magic!I choose to read New Suns with the hope that I would walk away with a few new names of authors to keep in mind. Finding a new author is such a joy and I found several! My guess is that other readers may enjoy diffe...

I plan to review this in a more detailed/helpful way from a computer, but for now I'll just say that this is a wonderful and wide-ranging collection. Aha! More review follows:Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex by Tobias S. Buckell - I saw this recommended several places and getting a lot of love, and it was nice but didn't wow me. ★★½☆☆ Deer Dancer by Kathleen Alcalá - beautiful, understated, light on detail in a way that worked ★★★☆☆The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations by Minsoo Kang - clever...

I'm always hungry for voices in Speculative Fiction who have the gift of seeing the world - past, present and future - differently and who can help me step out of my world and into theirs. I bought Nisi Shawl's 'New Suns - Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color' because I was already a fan of two of the writers, Karin Lowachee and Rebecca Roanhorse, I'm happy that, from the seventeen stories in 'New Suns', I've found another seven new-to-me writers whose work I'd like to see more of. I...

So many stories full of brilliant ideas and settings. I must add that I listened to the audio version and was very impressed by the narrator's skill of taking on so many different vocal styles and accents. For reference, here's how I personally interpret the star ratings:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ = Excellent⭐⭐⭐⭐ = Good⭐⭐⭐ = Average/okay⭐⭐ = Disliked⭐ = HatedGalactic Tourist Industrial Complex, by Tobias S. BuckellThis one was fine. I have no strong opinions about it. The setting was pretty neat, even though there d...

I have read quite a few anthologies published by this publishing house and while short story anthologies are nearly always a mixed bag, I have always found some brilliant authors to follow. This book though did not work for me. I found most of the short stories disappointing and I did not finish reading all of them. I think I would have liked this more if there had been some kind of theme here. While I appreciate the idea of publishing short stories by authors of colour, I do think more cohesion...

I'm thinking really hard about what I want to say in this review because I do want to be supportive about spec fic by POC but I also want to be real. And honestly, either my expectations were too high (most likely) or I don't know what I want (I never know what I want), because I finished the book with a slight sense of discontent.I guess as anthologies go, this is a proper mixed bag. There were 5 that I really liked and 4 that I liked but had some reservations about? So that’s already 9/17, whi...

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review. This is a really good anthology. It highlights speculative fiction of all sorts from people of color. Here's a list of the authors included: Kathleen Alcala, Minsoo Kang, Anil Menon, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Alex Jennings, Alberto Yanez, Steven Barnes, Jaymee Goh, Karin Lowachee, E. Lily Yu, Andrea Hairston, Tobias Buckell, Hiromi Goto, Rebecca Roanhorse, Indrapramit Das, Chinelo Onwualu and Darcie Little Badger.Tobias Buckell kicks