10 Black Speculative Fiction Anthologies You Should Read
If novels are the meat and bones of Black Speculative Fiction – science fiction, fantasy and horror written by and about people of African descent – then short stories are the lifeblood.
Anthologies are great because the short fiction found within them allows readers to expand their reading horizons in a relatively short amount of time through diverse stories written in a variety of writing styles.
Here are 10 Black Speculative Fiction anthologies that will show you just how Blacktastic science fiction, fantasy and horror storytelling can get.
Black Power: The Superhero Anthology
This groundbreaking anthology brings together twenty authors to craft original short superhero stories.
BLACK POWER: THE SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY offers BANG-POW-THOOM action, searing satire, and thoughtful social commentary from a people too often overlooked in mainstream comic books and heroic cinema and television.
The superheroes in BLACK POWER: THE SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY come from all walks of life. Some have superpowers that make them something more, or less, than human, but others face a dangerous world with only their wits and willpower to aid them. Some of the heroes fight against racism, sexism, gang violence and police brutality. Others combat evil on a cosmic scale. ALL of the stories are entertaining and enlightening.
Black Heroes Matter. Read BLACK POWER: THE SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY and find out just how much!
A witch, more machine than human, judges the character of the wicked and hands out justice in a ravaged Chicago. John Henry wields his mighty hammers in a war against machines and the undead. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman rule a country of freed slaves that rivals – and often bests – England and France in power and technology. You will find all this – and much more – between the pages of Steamfunk, an anthology of incredible stories by some of today’s greatest authors of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Steamfunk – African and Diaspora-inspired Steampunk.
Editors Milton Davis and Balogun Ojetade have put together a masterful work guaranteed to transport you to new worlds. Worlds of adventure; of terror; of war and wonder; of iron and steam.
Open these pages and traverse the lumineferous aether to the world of Steamfunk!
Where Sword and Soul ends and before Steamfunk begins, there is the Age of Spring Technology and Clockwork.
Imagine an alternate universe where chronomancer Benjamin Banneker crafts a world of automatons, clockwork airships and other marvels; where Nat Turner leads a rebellion, killing hordes of vampire slave owners; where the pirate queen, Black Pitch Pauline joins Jean-Jacques Dessalines in defeating Napoleon during the Haitian Revolution. Think Three Finger’d Jack; the pirate, Black Caesar; the Black Count, Nat Turner, and the Stono Rebellion…THAT is Rococoa!
Fourteen masters of speculative fiction have taken a new genre, embraced its established themes and refashioned them in surprising ways and settings. The result is an anthology that defies its genre even as it defines it.
Take an amazing ride with eight authors as they add a funky twist to the Dieselpunk genre!
The Dieselfunk! anthology fills a void common in most speculative fiction genres, providing a much needed voice from an African/African Diaspora perspective.
Think the Harlem Renaissance meets Science Fiction… think Chalky White (from Boardwalk Empire) doing battle with robots run amok in his territory… think Mob bosses; Nazis; flappers. Jazz; the Tuskegee Airmen; bootleggers; Bessie Coleman; Marcus Garvey; the 761st Tank Battalion; the Tulsa Race Riots… that is Dieselfunk!
The City: A Cyberfunk Anthology
The City anthology is a unique creation – a collection of stories where eighteen different authors share their vision of a single idea. It is Cyberfunk – cyberpunk stories that play with future concepts from an African/Black perspective. Most of all it is engaging, exciting, thought provoking and fun.
Like the inhabitants, the City is perceived in various ways by the various writers. Some stories intersect, some diverge, but they all entertain. The result is a journey into a unique world described by unique and engaging voices.
The Dark Universe anthology tells the origin story of the Cassad Empire, from its ambitious beginning to its evolution to the first great human Galactic Empire and its eventual fall.
Dark Universe is space opera like you’ve never seen.
The time has come; Dark Universe is here!
Griots: Sisters of the Spear picks up where the groundbreaking Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology leaves off.
Charles R. Saunders and Milton J. Davis present seventeen original and exciting Sword and Soul tales focusing on Black women. Just as the Griots anthology broke ground as the first Sword and Soul anthology, Griots: Sisters of the Spear pays homage to the spirit, bravery and compassion of African women.
The griots have returned to sing new songs, and what wonderful songs they are!
Forever Vacancy: A Colors in Darkness Anthology
Colors in Darkness, the premiere online site for dark fiction authors of color presents its first anthology and boy did they bring the thrills and chills!
Amid the upheaval of the 1960s, the Kretcher Motel opened in a poor, desolate part of Atlanta. It still serves its original purpose: to lure those souls who are lost, who are troubled, who are evil… to itself.
Check in to view these thirteen dark tales of horror, betrayal, fear, and wickedness, all featuring characters of color. You may never want to leave.
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
Dark Matter was the first series to bring together the works of Black Science Fiction and Fantasy writers and introduce them to generations of readers who never had the chance to explore the scope and diversity of Black writers or Black Speculative Fiction.
Thought-provoking, powerful, and revealing, this anthology is composed of 28 dark stories and 14 poems written by Black women writers. The works delve into demons and shape-shifters to far future offerings. These pieces cover vampires, ghosts, and mermaids, as well as the unexpected price paid by women struggling for freedom and validation in the past.
