New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color

by Nisi Shawl

Foreword LeVar Burton

There is a pleasing phenomenon developing in the genre recently: the worthy inclusion of voices of color, which are being paid much overdue attention. Why this is important should be self-evident. However, for those sitting way in the back, consider this: we continually create the world we occupy—in our imaginations first, and only afterwards do we make those visions manifest in this world. So it stands to reason that a healthy society is one that respects and honors the voices of ALL of its components. For too long, the voices and visions for our future have been provided, for the most part, by and from a culturally European (if not Eurocentric) perspective.

The exploration of space and our eventual close encounters with other intelligent species will require us to leave our “colonizer” mentality behind and embrace an attitude of openness and humility we have yet to cultivate, let alone master. When a world leader advocates for the creation of a militaristic Space Force to exercise “dominance” in the heavens, we are moving further than ever from Gene Roddenberry’s United Federation of Planets. Instead, our exploration into the unknown should cause us to examine who we are as sentient beings, and science fiction as a tool for social change makes for a most welcome companion on our journey.

The stories contained within will delight your sensibilities, inspire your wonderings, and connect you to your humanity, which is the point of good storytelling—but, you don’t have to take MY word for it!

THE GRAND PHILOSOPHER Ancient Leaf once expounded that a man who kills another out of passion or greed is condemned as a murderer, and one who kills ten people is reviled as a maniac, but one who causes the death of hundreds of thousands in pursuit of personal glory is often revered as a great personage.

What the newly unearthed documents reveal is that Diviner Supreme and Upright Lotus systematically mistranslated all essential communications between the imperial court and the leadership of the Great Sea Dragon’s fleet, and in all likelihood did the same in their interpretive work. The documents also show that this was not the result of ignorance or incompetence but a deliberate act, pointing to the remarkable fact that the two translators colluded in the production of unfaithful renderings. Some examples of such mistranslations follow.

I am also puzzled about the stipulation that the infomercial be promoted to primarily white upper class markets. Isn’t this racist?

Narrator: Here you will find the shepherds you have sought to lead you to your destiny, from the moment you step off the plane or cruise ship near the docks, as so many of our ancestors did prior to reaching their final destinations, working in the Americas— [Note to Image library: is Gone with the Wind in public domain now? There are some great possibilities there. Can we license?] NARRATOR: —or enjoying any number of wonderful opportunities in Central America. Whether enjoying the sunshine raising cotton and textiles in the Carolinas, or treasure-hunting for gold and diamond deposits in the mountains of Brazil’s Minas Gerais, these migrant workers left their homes centuries ago with hope in their hearts, and were rewarded beyond their imaginings. We invite you to celebrate their first view of the New World from the same perspective.

You will have the opportunity to visit the many locations where our ancestors learned to work in the sun through long hours and with modest caloric intake. Not for nothing are we called “The Spa of the Caribbean”! Our fortunate forebears found plenty of opportunities to learn the new chattel system, the one where our work could be transformed into good hard American money. What luck that we, who had not developed such systems, were able to take advantage of preexisting structures. What a blessing to simply slip into them, receive our new names, languages, and religions, say goodbye to the cares and woes of personal responsibility. How can we possibly show our gratitude to the descendants of these wise ones?

Those still ambulatory enough to enjoy dancing may do so, while others can listen to our local musical troupe Los Muertos until dawn, or be wheeled out to watch the sun rise while savoring specialized tropical drinks with our well known coconut-pineapple phenobarb infusions, a new spin on an old favorite! Holothane inhalation and ketamine injections are also available on request, as well as trademarked Tetrodotoxin specialties hand-harvested from the “Zombie Cucumber” sea urchins for which our island neighbors are so famous! By special request we can also provide Acepromazine, Propofol, or Medetomidine, in combinations guaranteed to usher you gently to your eternal reward. While our trademarked concoctions can protect your taste buds against any bitterness inherent in the medications offering the relief you crave, we respect that some are conflicted, and wish the bite of Socrates’ hemlock, an old favorite given a modern twist, served in a coconut shell with a tiny festive umbrella. For those even more convinced that voluntary exit is a sin, concoctions infused with potassium chloride can help purge your soul with intensity even a martyr would envy. We promise a truly stimulating passage.

Watching one final sunrise, you’ll be able to close your eyes knowing that you have ended your pain and suffering in the hands of those who have much reason to wish to assist you. Isn’t it time?

I would wake up in the twin bed at like five in the morning, and I could just feel the whole house full of family sleeping way above me and below me, and I knew I wasn’t by myself and I knew that if criminals or monsters or like enemy soldiers busted in, there were a bunch of people who would literally fight to make sure they couldn’t get at me and kill me, and it was the warmest feeling, and that was how I knew what love and family were. It was that kind of occupiedness-of-our-surroundings with other quieter folks.

Like, in that one psych class I took at the community college back in Lafayette, Mr. Charm taught us about how other people in dreams aren’t really other people, they’re just also you representing people and other stuff to yourself. It makes sense because can you imagine if all the things and places you dreamed about were real? Where would they go when you wake up? Who would be responsible for clearing them away and storing them like the sets for high school drama productions and stuff? I talked to Johnny about it, and he was like, “Those things and people aren’t you. They’re just projections created by your mind, and when you wake up, they’re uncreated, and so they’re just not.” We were punishingly high. But that makes even less sense to me. Uncreated? What is that? I took physics in high school, and my God, what a shit-show that was, but at least I know that you can’t just uncreate matter or whatever. Like, it has to go somewhere. It has to become energy or something. I think about that, sometimes. About what it would be like to be unborn. Uncreated. You would too, if you saw what I’ve seen.

I understood just like it was speaking clearly like you and me right now. no “What do you mean? Why are you watching us?” nearby “What are you watching for? What are you hoping to see?” nothing seek nothing except “Except? Except what?” for under the blown apart without wholeness unkind of mercy “What?” An aching feeling stole over me then. It was like loneliness, but not. It was like a song I’d heard but didn’t quite remember. It was like being at the wrong end of a telescope, and then being crowded out of myself.

The Emperor has abandoned them, and the Living Lord has abandoned them, and the lawspeakers would rather the magebloods die unprofaned than take this step. But the women all spoke together through the night wind and the power of their own blood, and although a few wisewives dissented or abstained from condoning the plan, they concur: if God will not understand, what good is God?

And I can already sense that you will not be happy in this sleepy little beachside, so we will drift across the oceans to find old shipwrecks and waylay unhappy boats. We will delve into the trenches to find the methuselahs who feed on whales and deep sea squid in between their slumbering aeons. Maybe we will find others like us. Maybe we will make more like us. Maybe in the far future you will leave me anyway, but it will not matter by then.

But most of the publications were directed toward women and with the same old perennial message, shouting from every cover, for all the women to see. More than Ten Ways to Lose Your Belly Fat! In fact, there were at least twenty effective tips on how to reduce belly fat. For those with less time and attention, there was always One Easy Trick. Che! Marnie clicked her tongue. In gas stations, in the doctor’s office, at the grocery store checkout, pop-up ads blooming on her screen when she clicked links on Twitter, looked up stuff on Google and listened to 70s songs on YouTube, the information, doctrine, religion, incantation, spell seemed to follow Marnie Mori wherever she went. The tall, lean white women with pony tails and rolled-up yoga mats who lived in her neighborhood did not help one bit. In time she grew numb to the refrain; she began to unhear and unsee it. If Marnie had never grown to love her belly fat, she had accepted it. They’d been part of each for so long, even longer than her marriage with her ex-husband and her previous committed long-term relationship with Cassandra, combined. Essentially, the past thirty years. And now she was alone, again. But belly fat was still with her.

Decades back, as a recent graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, I met with a committee to pick our next set of instructors. (Every year there are six different instructors for Clarion West’s six-week intensive, all writers and editors of note in the speculative genre.) Since this was a special anniversary for the workshop, I proposed that we celebrate by choosing people of color for every slot. We didn’t. There were numerous objections to my idea, but the one that has stayed with me was the heartfelt complaint that by doing this we’d “use them all up.” That is, if we filled our teaching roster with nonwhite instructors one year, we’d have none left to call on for following years—unless we kept inviting the same old crew back again and again.