On Dark Matter

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Thomas, Sheree R., ed. Dark Matter: A Century of SpeculativeFiction from the African Diaspora. New Y o r k : Warner Books, 2000.P p . xiv , 427.

H o p k i n s o n , Nalo, ed. Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: CaribbeanFabulist Fiction. M o n t p e l i e r , V T : Invisible Cities Press, 2000. Pp.x i i i , 318.

Genre, l i ke race, does not actually exist. At least, it o n l y really exists in the actof assigning a particular label to groups of entities that share certain similar,albeit h i g h l y selected, characteristics. Whether this desire to distinguish andsort stems from a need to embrace or disgrace, to approve or reprove, theprocess of classification itself typical ly tends to ignore similarities betweencategorical groups, preferring instead to emphasize the differences. In the caseof popular genres such as science fiction and fantasy, writer and editor UrsulaK . L e G u i n argues that the "d e f i n i t i on of a genre is often an act of offence, orof retaliation" (20); the same, of course, may be said of racial classification,although admittedly w i t h far graver consequences.

However much we may protest such abuses of science and logic, bothgenre and race continue to matter, especially to those who seek to excludeand denounce difference. There is another, important way in w h i c h thesecategories operate, however, as Le G u i n also attests in her i n t r o d u c t i o n to the1993 edition of The Norton Book of Science Fiction. A r g u i n g that genre is a"useful concept o n l y when used not evaluatively but descriptively" (20), LeG u i n adds that "Authors and readers of any genre form a community, w i t hcertain shared interests and expectations" (20). But, as just a glance at TheNorton Book of Science Fiction w o u l d reveal, the community of science fict i o n writers, at least, has been, historically, a predominantly white one. TheN o r t o n c o l le c ti o n , w h i c h contains over sixty stories and begins to redress thegender imbalance w i t h its i n c l u s i o n of a number of female science fiction authors, includes the work of o n l y two black writerspredictably, Samuel R.Delany and Octavia E. Butler. As Charles R. Saunders points out in an essaycollected in Dark Matter, " Wh y Blacks Should Read (And Wri te ) ScienceF i c t i o n , " it has long been assumed that A f r i c a n and A f r i c a n diasporic writersare not interested in speculative fiction, and that there is no significant black

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readership for ir . In an essay in the same c o l l e c r i on , Walter Mosley speculatesthat this is because

O u r writers have histor ical ly been regarded as a footnote best suitedto address the nature of our own chains. So, i f black writers wantedto branch out past the realism of racism and race, they were curtailed by their own desire to document the crimes of A m e r i c a . Afurther deterrent was the white literary establishment's desire forblacks to write about being black in a white w o r l d , a l i m i t a t i o n imposed upon a l i m i t a t i o n . (406)

M e a n w h i l e , writers such as T o n i M o r r i s o n , Jamaica K i n c a i d , Ralph E l l i s o n ,Derek Walcort, Erna Brodber, Dionne Brand, Ben O k r i , and many morehave been w o r k i n g w i t h i n speculative fiction conventions (using techniquesoften conveniently labelled magic realist) for a number of years without beingembraced by the community of speculative writers.

The two anthologies reviewed here, both published in 2000, clearly announce a desire ro claim a space for the work of certain black writers w i t h i nthis community. For her anthology Black Matter, Sheree R. Thomas castsa fair ly wide net to collect " A f r i ca n diasporic speculative fiction from thepast century" (Thomas xi). Nalo Hopkinson's anthology, Whispers from theCotton Tree Root, more modestly presents twenty "fabulist" works wr i t t enby Caribbean-born writers. Together, these anthologies not o n l y introducethe ir readers to a significant, and often undervalued, body of work w i t h i nthe genre of speculative f i c t ion, but also challenge us to t h i n k more creativelyand cr i t i ca l ly about the construction of both race and genre.

Thomas's t i t le, Dark Matter, cleverly signifies on the scientific speculationthat "as much as ninety percent of the material in the universe may be objectsor particles that cannot be seen" (Thomas x). S i mi la r ly , Thomas argues, "thecontributions of black writers to the sf [speculative fiction] genre have notbeen directly observed or fully explored" (xi). Thomas's selection of "matter"for the anthology does, indeed, "shed new light on both the sf genre and themainstream literary canon" (xi), particularly when it asks us to reconsider thew o r k of "mainstream" writers such as Charles W . Chesnutt, W . E . B . D u Bois,A m i r i Baraka, and Ishmael Reed in terms of the ir contributions to the speculative genre. Chesnutt's "The Goopherd Grapevine" (1887) has been widelycollected in American literature anthologies, but here it is re-presented byThomas as horror fiction, arguably a subset of the speculative genre. In "TheComet" ( 1920), a more obscure work by a distinguished A m e r i c a n wr i t er andscholar, Du Bois uses a science fiction scenariothe annihilation of mostof New Y o r k City's inhabitants by the tail of a cometto speculate upon

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h o w the barriers of racial segregation might dissolve if the last two remainin g humans on earth were a black man and a white woman. It is pethaps lesssurprising to encounter a short story by A m i t i Batalca and an excerpt fromthe novel The Terrible Twos by Ishmael Reed in this anthology. Bataka andReed, while not usually categorized as speculative writers, have consistentlyrejected naturalistic and realistic techniques in favour of narrative and thematic innovation, and their inclusion in the anthology only highlights thisgeneric tendency.

Readers looking fot mote revelations of this sort, however, w i l l be disappointed. O f the rwenty-nine stories and five essays collected in the anthology, approximately rwenty stories are published here for the first time. Onecan eithet fault Thomas for not digging more deeply into the recent past(where, for example, are M o r r i s o n , K i n c a i d , Brand?) or applaud her in c l u sion of work written by less recognized contemporary black speculative fict i o n writers. Pethaps the real problem lies in the ovetly ambitious subtitleof the anthology: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora.A t any rate, this anthology obviously belongs to a new genetation of writerswhose work not only gains c re d i b i l i ty by being collected w i t h the likes of D uBois and Baraka, not to mention Delany and Butler, but sometimes surpassesthese bettet-known writers in sheer invention and enetgy. Indeed, i f anythingconcretely distinguishes Dark Matter from The Norton Book of Science Fiction,it is the consistent attention paid, in the former, by this new generation ofwritets, deafly influenced by the signifying practices of t h e i i elders, to themusical quality and subvetsive potential of language. And when signifyin'meets sf, as it does in stories by Honore Fanonne Jeffers, Jewell Gomez, EvieShockley, Leone Ross, Tananarive Due, Anthony Joseph, Nalo Hopkinson,Kalamu ya Salaam, N i s i Shawl, Robett Fleming, Dettick B e l l , and D a r r y lS m i t h , to name just a few of these new voices, the result is work that pushesthe speculative genre in astonishing directions.

A l l of the wtitets collected in Dark Matter answer Saunders' call for blackwritets of speculative fiction to "serve a function similat [to] that of the batdor the gtiot in ways 'litetary' writers cannot approach," and "to unleash outimaginations to tell out own sf and fantasy stories" (404). The srories c o l lected feature black characters as protagonists in roles traditionally occupiedby whites in speculative fiction, whethet it is the vampire in Jewelle Gomez's"chicago 1927," the clone in Tananarive Due's "Like Daughtet," the asttalttavellets in Kalamu ya Salaam's "Buddy Bolden," of the robots in D a r r y lA . Smith's "The Pretended." The latter story, along w i t h "Black No M o r e "(an excetpt from the 1931 novel of the same name by George S. Schuyler),D e r r i c k Bell's "The Space Traders," and "separation anxiety" by Evie

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Shockley, also uses science fiction devices to perform thought experiments onthe issue of racism. In Smiths moving, eloquent story, a young robot namedMnemosyne finds herself, along w i t h all other robots, on a train to o b l i v i o n ,wondering why she and the other robots have been ordered to self-destruct.H e r memory circuits ttace the path to this command through a history thathas resulted in the extinction of black people from the earrh and a subsequent"enterprise" to cteate robotic servants in the image of the extinct race. AsMnemosyne reminds her friend, D i v a Eve,

They thought robots was a good way to make believe that you wasblack but not people after they couldn't ptetend no mote w i t h realblack people. Jes take t h i n k i n outa teal black people btains, putit into computis, rase the memory a bit, make our talk the waythey t h i n k it should sound, and piss the whole kit'n'kaboodle intorobots. (362)

I ronical ly , howevet, these "robotic subalternistics" (363) serve only to intensify white guilt and discomfott. D i v a Eve suggests that the teason for the fa ilure of the " A f r i d y n e " (359) experiment is that "they [white people] been pre-t e n d i n black aint people for so long, they accidentally builded machines thatreminded em that they was jes pretendin all along" (364). In a final, futile actof rebellion, Mnemosyne refuses to tetminate herself and forces her "mastets"to see het humanity and to reckon w i t h het agency. In very different stories,D e r r i c k B e l l and Evie Shockley demonsttate that the v i a b i l i t y of facial classification and oppression depends uttetly on white surveillance and privilege.In a terse p ol i t i c a l allegory, B e l l imagines what would happen i f an alien forcearrived on earth, offering technological advancement and wealth in exchangefor the A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n population of the United States. Shockley projectsan America of the future in w h i c h blacks are coerced into almost completesegregation from the white population, ostensibly in an effort to preservethe ir unique culture, but really so that they can be managed and controlledby a racist government.

The theme of Shockley's story taises a significant issue w i t h respect to ananthology l i ke Black Matter. Does such a project extend the tange of speculative fiction by introducing readers to new wrirers in the genre, or does it servemerely to ghettoize these wtitets? The latter tendency has long been a concernof Samuel R. Delany, one of the most prominent A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n writets ofspeculative fiction. In an essay collected in Dark Matter that appears to p u l l ina different direction from that of Saunders, Delany argues that the systemicracism of No tth American society has not only prevented fu l l , unqualifiedrecognirion of black wtitets' wotk, including his own, but it has also resulted

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in a failure to recognize the affinity that his work shares w i t h white writers,pa rt i cu la r ly those that have emerged in the sub-genre of cyberpunk. Delanycites numerous instances o f what he calls "both racism and sexism" in the science f ict ion world, and he questions the automatic labelling of his work:

as long as racism functions as a system, it is st i l l fuelled by aspectso f the perfectly laudable desires of intetested whites to observe thist h i n g , however dubious its reality, that exists largely by means of itshaving been named: A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n science fiction. (395)

In making a claim that "black writers have been offering distinctive speculative visions to the w o r l d far longer than is generally thought" (x i i ) , Thomasmay w el l be promoting such ghettoization. However, the challenge remainsone of finding a venue for the work of new A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n and A fr i ca ndiasporic writers whose themes and characters are not deemed "mainstream"enough for publishers.

Thomas' anthology concludes w i t h a br i l l i ant autobiographical performance piece by P a u l D . M i l l e r , "a.k.a. D J Spooky that Subliminal K i d " anda brief essay by Octavia E. Butler, a writer referred to by Charles R. Saundersas "a second giant to stand beside Delany" (399). Butler's quiet, meditativethoughts on what it means to be alien, and what it w i l l mean for humanity tomeet aliens, stand in stark contrast to M il l e r ' s informal, energetic r i f f on whatit means to be a black male in American culture. However, that is preciselythe strength of this anthology: by showcasing the work of a new generationo f A f r i c a n and A f r i c a n diasporic writers of speculative fiction in the contexto f an established tradition, Thomas ' anthology should ultimately succeed increating a new audience for both.

W h i l e Nalo Hopkinson's anthology, Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root:Caribbean Fabulist Fiction, serves a similar purpose to that of Dark Matter,in that it shows us an established tradition as w el l as an emerging body ofw o r k , it has a much narrower geographical focus. L i k e Thomas, Hopkinsonis also a writer of speculative fiction: in fact, two of her stories are collectedin Dark Matter. In these stories, "Greedy Choke Puppy" and "Ganger (BallL i g h t n i n g ) , " Hopkinson demonstrates the elasticity of the speculative genre.In "Greedy Choke Puppy," Hopkinson draws on Caribbean folklore to present a horror story about a young woman who is warned by her grandmotherthat her impatience and greed for life may have unhappy consequences. In adark, fairy tale conclusion to the story, the older woman must k i l l her granddaughter, whose intemperance has turned her into a predatory "soucouy-ant" or "blood-sucker" {Dark Matter 106). In "Ganger (Ball Lightning)," ayoung couple's experimentation w i t h body-suits intended to enhance sexual

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pleasure turns into a horrific nightmare when one of the suits comes to lifeand stalks the couple. Hopkinson includes one of her own stories in Whispersfrom the Cotton Tree Root, as we l l : in "Glass Bortle Trick," a brilliant, psychological interpretation of the Bluebeard story, a young newlywed womanlearns a horrible truth about her darkly handsome husband.

These storiesdrawing as much from Asian, European, and Caribbeanfo lklore as they do from the contemporary horror, fantasy, and science fict i o n genrestypify the eclecticism of the works collected in Hopkinson'santhology. In her introduction, Hopkinson admits that, as she began to receive contributions, she had to revise her own presuppositions, informed byN o r t h American media and culture, about the speculative genre. In the end,though, she admits that

many of those pieces did capture some of the feel I wanted. I hadto come up w i t h the words to explain why. Finally I came to theconclusion that fabulist was exactly the right word to describe theanthology. The stories invoke a sense of fable. Sometimes they arefantastical, sometimes absurd, satirical, magical, or allegorical, (xii)

The works collected here, Hopkinson tells us in her introduction, are all bywriters w i t h a Caribbean background, mostly from Jamaica, Trinidad, andGuyana, the areas w i t h w h i c h Hopkinson is most familiar (xi). As such,Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root redresses an imbalance in Dark Matter.

A l t h o u g h the latter claims to represent A f r i c a n diasporic literature, its focus isp r i m a r i l y on American writers (notable exceptions in Dark Matter are LeoneRoss from Jamaica and Anthony Joseph from Trinidad, both now based inthe U. K . , and, of course, Hopkinson herself). Like Thomas, Hopkinson includes both well-established writers, such as W i l s o n Harris, Jamaica Kincaid,O l i v e Senior, Kamau Brathwaite, and H . Nigel Thomas, as we l l as some whoare less familiar to the audience for either Commonwealth or speculative l i t erature. About half the stories appear here for the first time; of the rest c o l lected, the earliesr is W i l s o n Harris's "Yurokon," first published in 1970.

H o p k i n s o n has organized the twenty stories in her collection into variouscategories in an effort to capture their themes and styles, and she provides abrief, introductory commentary before each story. In this way, she imposes order upon eclecticism, even as she cautions her reader to approach theanthology "in the spirit of breaking the rules" (x i i i ) . This tension betweenorder and chaos also characterizes many of the stories in the collection, ascharacters struggle, along w i t h readers, to discern the deeper, often spiritua l , meaning of events. The opening story, Marcia Douglas's "What theP e r i w i n k l e Remember," is about Bella, a woman in an asylum whose insanity

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by Pamela Mordecai's "Once on the Shores of the Stream Senegambia." Asreaders, we share the fiist-petson narratot's gradual recognition of her plight:she has been dtugged and captuted, and is being forced, along w i t h othetblack women, to gstate white babies w i t h i n het womb. In spite of its seemi n g l y improbable premise, this story succeeds both at the metaphotical andrhe l i teral level. In eithei a vision or a memorythe lines between reality anddrug-induced hallucination ate ambiguously drawnthe narrator hears ano l d black woman say, " Now they taising human being l ike pig and chicken.Soon they going to tell we who to bteed and who to batten. And I know whobel ly they going lock down first" (175). Like Tananarive Due in het story" L i k e Daughtet," collected in Dark Matter, Motdecai exttapolates from current technological "advances," in this case to imagine a w o i l d in w h i c h theservice role to w h i c h many black women have historically been relegared istaken to its ultimate, shocking l i m i t .

Mordecai's story is one of only a few in Whispers from the Cotton Tree Rootthat might properly be called science fiction. The others in this anthologythat may qualify for this distinction include "Uncle Obadiah and the A l i e n "by Geoffrey P h i l p and "Soma" by Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar. AntonioBenitez-Rojo's story, "Buried Statues," might likewise be classified as fantasy.But it is clear that Hopkinson's intent in this anthology is to suggest thatmaking these clear-cut distinctions among works of the imagination blindsus to the variegated richness of all fiction. By featuring Motdecai's storyalongside those of Btathwaite, Senior, and Walcott, Hopkinson suggests, asI claim above, that the speculative genre need be neither r i g i d nor exclusive:such a liberation of the genre as is witnessed in both anthologies is sure ro at-ttact new readers to both speculative and postcolonial fiction.

N a n c y E . Bat ty

Works CitedLe Guin, Ursula K. Introduction. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. Eds. Ursula

K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery. New York: Norton, 1993. 15-42.

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On Dark Matter