mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

This is part 6 of my book club notes on Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. [part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5]

I considered letting the group know that since it was my birthday, they were not allowed to disagree with my opinions, but I restrained myself!


"Ark of Bones" by Henry Dumas (1974)

Two men encounter a 'soulship' on the Mississippi. I really liked the tense, mysterious atmosphere and the strange imagery on board the ship. The story was inspired by Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones, and the religious symbolism was quite dense, which made it a little hard to fully understand for some of us. It also reminded me of UFO narratives—a strange vessel appears from the mist, you're taken aboard, you see wondrous and confusing things, and you're left thinking that even if you told people what happened they'd never believe you.

The author was killed in a police shooting in 1968, and this story was published posthumously. I was curious if we know when it was actually written, but cursory searching came up with conflicting information. Though the story is dated 1974 here, it seems it was actually first published in 1970.

A group member with JSTOR access helpfully shared The Mystique Factor in Dumas's "Ark of Bones" by Adetokunbo Pearse. This made it clearer to me how the story related to Ezekiel and the concept of scattered bones being gathered up and made whole.


"Butta's Backyard Barbecue" by Tony Medina (2000)

Flash fiction about a breakdancing competition that takes a supernatural turn. Though it's not quite drabble-short, this felt drabble-like in structure: a vivid setup, quickly followed by a punchline. I was amused. I think people enjoyed this one but since it's so short there wasn't a lot to discuss. Some of the cultural references place the story very firmly in the '90s—I was surprised that not everyone knew who Greg Louganis was!

My notes included the phrase "door knocker earrings," which got me giggling all over again about a silly tangent we went on about that particular descriptor. You probably had to be there. XD


"Future Christmas" (excerpt from the novel The Terrible Twos) by Ishmael Reed (1982)

A dystopian satire in which Christmas is legally owned by an evil corporation. Others seemed to appreciate this, but it wasn't for me. I often don't like anticapitalist satire, which is perhaps surprising since I certainly hate capitalism! A lot of the time it's just so heavy-handed, and since I don't need to be convinced of the underlying arguments, I get really bored. Like, yeah, corporate ownership of culture is bad. I know that already.

One person said the writing reminded him of Thomas Pynchon, but apparently Pynchon cited Reed as an influence, so really it's the other way around! The narrative had a lot going on (someone linked to a contemporary review that referred to a plot point as one of the "80,000 things" that happen in the novel) which led to some discussion of how an author decides what to submit as an excerpt for an anthology and where to end it. This excerpt ended rather abruptly. Is leaving the reader wanting more a consideration, so they'll want to go out and buy the book?

Reed's name was familiar to me from his play The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, a critique of Hamilton, so knowing a little more about Reed's other work added some context to that.


"At Life's Limits" by Kiini Ibura Salaam (2000)

An extraterrestrial meets a Santeria priestess and her sons in 1990s Cuba. I enjoyed the alien POV here, her nonhuman sensory perceptions, what an alien environment Earth is for her, and how she communicates with her people through movement. A couple of people felt the phrasing of some of this was clunky and forced (e.g. repeatedly saying "vision centers" instead of eyes) which I think is a fair criticism. With too much of that you can get into Coneheads territory. But I guess I didn't find it that bad.

We spent more time talking about this piece than any of the others in this bunch, mostly about the plot and the worldbuilding, a lot of which was only hinted at on the page and was left open to interpretation. The setup seems to be that the aliens are feeding on humans in some way, which you'd usually think would be a bad thing, but the framing of it as "collecting nectar" suggests a harmless or perhaps even mutually beneficial interaction, like pollination. But then how does this relate to the real-world setting of communist Cuba, where the characters are struggling with being misunderstood and exploited by colonialist forces? What is the parallel here? Are the aliens being compared to Americans? What does it mean that the aliens are (sometimes) harmed by their activities on Earth? Or is it actually harm?

I really wanted to find a tidy reading where everything was explained, but I'm not sure that was possible with what we were given. I enjoyed it while I was reading it but the more I tried to figure out what it meant the more the meaning seemed to slip through my fingers. One person argued for reading it as more dreamlike and not looking so hard for logic in it, but another said that without understanding the protagonist's mission on Earth we can't say if she succeeds or fails, so it's unsatisfying in that way. Personally, I guess I just got the feeling that the author had something specific in mind but wasn't spelling it out, so it was hard for me to let go of the analysis and let it just be vibes.


"Black to the Future" by Walter Mosley (2000) [essay]

Mosley discusses the power of SF to manifest positive change. I found this short essay lovely and resonant. "We make up, then make real. The genre speaks most clearly to those who are dissatisfied with the way things are: adolescents, post-adolescents, escapists, dreamers, and those who have been made to feel powerless." To change anything, you must first imagine a change!

He says every young Black writer he knew in 2000 was working on a SF manuscript, and he predicted there would soon be a big influx of Black SF. As we now know, he was absolutely right.

I actually did not know Mosley had written SF; I've only read Devil in a Blue Dress, which I enjoyed, but mystery isn't a genre I read much of, so I wasn't motivated to continue the series. One person who'd read a lot of his stuff noted that his SF is quite varied in tone, with some lighthearted and some very heavy and disturbing. I will have to investigate further.