Par antologija iz inozemstva, na engleskom

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Tomislav Sakic
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Par antologija iz inozemstva, na engleskom

Unread post by Tomislav Sakic »

Evo kako to izgleda vani, u kontekstu ideja da Ad astra nadje engleskog izdavača.

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(Aspect, 2001)
Dark Matter: the first anthology to illuminate the presence and influence of black writers in speculative fiction, with 25 stories, three novel excerpts, and five essays.

This anthology's critical and historical importance is indisputable. But that's not why it will prove to be the best anthology of 2000 in both the speculative and the literary fiction fields. It's because the stories are great: entertaining, imaginative, insightful, sharply characterized, and beautifully written. The earliest story in Dark Matter is acclaimed literary author Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Goophered Grapevine" (1887), in which an aging ex-slave tells a chilling tale of cursed land to a white Northerner buying a Southern plantation. In "The Comet" (1920), W.E.B. Du Bois portrays the rich white woman and the poor black man who may be the only survivors of an astronomical near-miss. In George S. Schuyler's "Black No More" (1931), an excerpt from the satirical novel of the same name, an African American scientist invents a machine that can turn blacks white. More recent reprints include science fiction master Samuel R. Delany's Nebula Award-winning "Aye, and Gomorrah..." (1967), which delineates the socio-sexual effects of asexual astronauts; Charles R. Saunders's heroic fantasy "Gimmile's Songs" (1984), in which a woman warrior encounters a singer with a frightening, compelling magic in ancient West Africa; MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Octavia E. Butler's powerful "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987), in which the cure for cancer creates a terrifying new disease of compulsive self-mutilation; and Derrick Bell's angry, riveting "The Space Traders" (1992), in which aliens offer to trade their advanced technology to the U.S. in exchange for its black population. Other reprints include "Ark of Bones" (1974) by author-poet-folklorist Henry Dumas; "Future Christmas" (1982) by master satirist Ishmael Reed; "Rhythm Travel" (1996) by playwright-poet-critic Amiri Baraka (who has also written as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka); and "The African Origins of UFOs" (2000) by London-based West Indian author Anthony Joseph.

Most of the stories in Dark Matter are original; these range even more widely in their concerns and themes. In the generation ship of Linda Addison's "Twice, at Once, Separated," a Yanomami Indian tribe preserves its culture in coexistence with technology, while visions tear a young woman from her own wedding. Bestselling novelist Steven Barnes examines degrees of privilege and deprivation when an African American woman artist is trapped in an African concentration camp in his unflinching contribution, "The Woman in the Wall." In John W. Campbell Award winner Nalo Hopkinson's sexy, scary "Ganger (Ball Lightning)," two lovers drifting apart try to reconnect through the separation of virtual sex. A mystic power awakens in the devastated future of Ama Patterson's gorgeous and tough "Hussy Strutt." An artist's infidelity changes two generations in Leone Ross's astute, magic-realist "Tasting Songs." In Nisi Shawl's sharp, witty mythic fantasy "At the Huts of Ajala," the spirit of a modern woman must outwit a god before she is even born. Others contributing new stories are Tananarive Due, Robert Fleming, Jewelle Gomez, Akua Lezli Hope, HonorÊe Fanonne Jeffers, Kalamu ya Salaam, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Evie Shockley, and Darryl A. Smith.

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(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004)
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of color.

Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre "speaks so much about the experience of being alienated but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves." It's an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology.

The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the "third world." It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centered in the worlds of the "developing" nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into.

The wealth of postcolonial literature has included many who have written insightfully about their pasts and presents. With So Long Been Dreaming they creatively address their futures.

Contributors include: Opal Palmer Adisa, Tobias Buckell, Wayde Compton, Hiromi Goto, Andrea Hairston, Tamai Kobayashi, Karin Lowachee, devorah major, Carole McDonnell, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Eden Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Sheree Renee Thomas and Greg Van Eekhout.
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(Wesleyan University Press, 2003)
Helpful explanatory notes, a comprehensive bibliography and a well-organized historical introduction all add value to this intriguing anthology, which contains 27 Spanish and Latin American SF stories, most of them brief, dating from 1862 to 2001. As the editors point out, Latino and Mediterranean countries are often perceived as consumers, if not victims, of the technology developed and sold by their northern neighbors. Hence, Latino writers tend to work with "soft" SF themes and a social science emphasis while incorporating Christian symbols and motifs, as in the powerful Cuban story "The Annunciation" (1983), or denouncing brutal totalitarian regimes, as in the shattering Brazilian "The Crystal Goblet" (1964). From Argentina, "Acronia" (1962), a frightening foreshadowing of an Orwellian online workplace, highlights the dangers of mechanization, while "The First Time" (1994), from Spain, postulates mental and moral decay as the end result of mindless consumerism. Flashes of wit and a gentler spirit (especially in the few stories by women) occasionally brighten this darkling plain of violence, perversions and utter hopelessness, but overall the political, social and economic turmoil that rocked Latin America in the 1970s and '80s seems still to pervade its science fiction, making for a gloomy, though instructive, reading experience.
Dagi
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Unread post by Dagi »

Hej, ovo je zanimljivo! U ostalom, Asimov je svojedobno napisao kako je SF iznimno plodan po produkciji antologija. Naravno, mislio je na Angloameričane.
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