mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

This is the third and final part of my book club notes on As the Earth Dreams. [Part one, part two.]


"deh ah market" by Whitney French

A pair of cousins bend time and space to connect with worlds and relatives past. I loved the writing here, very atmospheric and tangibly evocative of its different places and times. I did find the plot a little hard to follow. Others expressed lack of certainty if the story was about a multiverse of different versions of the protagonist, or if the people they meet are separate individuals just meant to suggest wondering who you'd be if you grew up in a different time and place. I thought it was the latter, but I see how it's not obvious. The author's first novel is coming out soon and it sounded like there was some interest.


"Paroxysm" by Zalika Reid-Benta

A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. So, this seemed potentially interesting when it was talking about the virus being associated with uncontrollable emotional states that are unique to each victim. But instead of exploring that, it devolved into painting the protagonist as a very distorted and unsympathetic stereotype of a covid-cautious person, scared to even walk down the hall to take the trash out. Everything about the story is set up to make the protagonist look crazy for trying to avoid getting sick, even in the very earliest days of the virus when it's unclear how it spreads! The internal logic of the story isn't consistent; the narrative makes it the protagonist's fault that her friend gets sick, because the friend wanted to go to a movie and the protagonist was too afraid to go, so... I guess being mad at people for quarantining makes you sick, somehow? And then other times it makes you write infuriatingly polemical short stories? Yeah, nobody liked this one.


"Just Say Garuka" by Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga

Two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice. This was a nice one. I liked how the relationship between the characters developed, and how it showed the protagonist's conflicted feelings of wanting closeness but knowing they're going to have to say goodbye. I think most of the group enjoyed this story, but noted it was very different in tone from most of the others! It seemed surprising that such a low-key entry was chosen as the final story. But then again, the story it was the most similar to was the editor's own contribution, so maybe it was a matter of the editor's taste. Or maybe she wanted to end on a hopeful note, and there just weren't that many options for doing that.


the end

I think the group did not end up being super jazzed about this book on the whole, and I felt similarly. There were a few stories I liked, but some felt like maybe they needed another pass for cohesion, and the collection leaned thematically grim in a way that I had a hard time connecting with. Oh well, they can't all be winners.

The group plans to continue with The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories.