What's the ideal Christmas present for a hardcore science fiction/fantasy reader to open up? Maybe it's a newly discovered sci fi/fantasy story but not necessarily by today's greatest authors such as Ben Bova and Corey Doctorow. Perhaps it's not even by any of yesterday's greatest yet today's classics such as Heinlein. It may be by someone who was never that well known to write in the genre yet who had a major influence in U.S. history, particularly on the Civil Rights movement. The ideal Christmas present for a hardcore reader of sci fi may be a story by W.E.B. Du Bois who actually wrote more science fiction than probably most of us speculative fiction geeks would ever have thought. I was so amazed when I found out about his most recently uncovered story, that I had to do an article on it at Examiner.com. Why the Christmas present analogy? You might find the answer in the article which I encourage you to read.
Du Bois' story is said to be a major contribution to Afrofuturism, a social criticism movement against racism, one that anticipates black society's future in light of technological advancements and so often uses science fiction by black authors as a tool of study. I discussed this movement in a post about a year ago which you can read but I must warn you that the links in that section go mostly to empty destinations since the website was a convention's that already passed. But Afrofuturism has definitely not passed. You'll find links in my article at Examiner.com to source articles that discuss the subject in more detail. Also, here's an interesting article I found that talks about the subject.
I just started the sketch for The Hidden's book cover illustration just yesterday and I hope to have it completed by next weekend but I can't promise anything; I still have some stories to revise for the book. Not to mention that we are entering into one of the busiest seasons of the year and so Christmas shopping and decorating are going to add to my schedule. I still have to select beta readers for the book so if anybody's interested please let me know in the box below. A beta reading will get you a free copy of the book, a beta copy of course, but maybe even a free copy of the final version too as a reward for the time you would take and the feedback you would give me; I'll have to see how that works out with Amazon.
Until next week . . .
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| Photo Credit: Carl Van Vechten/Wikimedia Commons |
Du Bois' story is said to be a major contribution to Afrofuturism, a social criticism movement against racism, one that anticipates black society's future in light of technological advancements and so often uses science fiction by black authors as a tool of study. I discussed this movement in a post about a year ago which you can read but I must warn you that the links in that section go mostly to empty destinations since the website was a convention's that already passed. But Afrofuturism has definitely not passed. You'll find links in my article at Examiner.com to source articles that discuss the subject in more detail. Also, here's an interesting article I found that talks about the subject.
I just started the sketch for The Hidden's book cover illustration just yesterday and I hope to have it completed by next weekend but I can't promise anything; I still have some stories to revise for the book. Not to mention that we are entering into one of the busiest seasons of the year and so Christmas shopping and decorating are going to add to my schedule. I still have to select beta readers for the book so if anybody's interested please let me know in the box below. A beta reading will get you a free copy of the book, a beta copy of course, but maybe even a free copy of the final version too as a reward for the time you would take and the feedback you would give me; I'll have to see how that works out with Amazon.
Until next week . . .
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