How Long 'til Black Future Month?

by N. K. Jemisin

Overview

Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.

"Marvelous and wide-ranging." — Los Angeles Times"Gorgeous" — NPR Books"Breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold." — Entertainment Weekly

Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story "The City Born Great," a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis's soul.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316491372
Publisher:	Orbit
Publication date:	08/13/2019
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	115,439
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Fifth Season, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She previously won the Locus Award for her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her short fiction and novels have been nominated multiple times for Hugo, World Fantasy, Nebula, and RT Reviewers' Choice awards, and shortlisted for the Crawford and the James Tiptree, Jr. awards. She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times, and you can find her online at nkjemisin.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

The Ones Who Stay and Fight 1

The City Born Great 14

Red Dirt witch 34

L'Alchimista 58

The Effluent Engine 75

Cloud Dragon Skies 113

The Trojan Girl 126

Valedictorian 150

The Storyteller's Replacement 170

The Brides of Heaven 183

The Evaluators 197

Walking Awake 214

The Elevator Dancer 234

Cuisine des Mémoires 238

Stone Hunger 254

On the Banks of the River Lex 280

The Narcomancer 296

Henosis 333

Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows 341

The You Train 354

Non-Zero Probabilities 362

Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters 373

Acknowledgments 399

Editorial Reviews

"The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation... Jemisin seems able to do just about everything."—New York Times

"Jemisin's phenomenal success has been something like an earthquake ripping through the traditional order of fantasy itself."—New York/Vulture

"The most critically acclaimed author in contemporary science fiction and fantasy."—GQ

"Jemisin's stories are discerning, thought-provoking, and beautifully crafted, showcasing a master at work."—Pen America

"Marvelous and wide-ranging."—Los Angeles Times

"One line from [Jemisin's introduction] has tattooed itself on my mind, a sort of manifesto for her ongoing work and all the fiction I love: 'Now I am bolder, and angrier, and more joyful.' I felt, after reading these stories, that I was too."—NPR Books

"N. K. Jemisin is a powerhouse of speculative fiction. So, obviously, you need to read this new short story collection."—Bustle

"Read her books-they're probably better than whatever else you were going to read next."—Literary Hub

"Jemisin is now a pillar of speculative fiction, breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold."—Entertainment Weekly

"Nora Jemisin is a writer of uncanny gifts who is to a moral certainty one of the five best we have right now."—Sci-Fi

"Powerful and mind-expanding...Jemisin pushes boundaries, experiments with format and theme, and challenges expectations."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[E]loquently develops a series of passionately felt themes... one of speculative fiction's most thoughtful and exciting writers."—Kirkus (starred review)

"Each of the [stories] is masterfully written and beautifully imagined, making the book difficult to put down...Anyone who appreciates Jemisin's work, speculative fiction, or simply the art of the short story shouldn't miss this collection."—BookPage

"Whether she's exploring alien life forms or political machinations, self-sacrifice or monsters in New Orleans, Jemisin's characters are boldly drawn, complex, and so engaging. This is a great gift for any long-time fan and a solid introduction to her work for the curious, and I highly recommend you grab yourself the gorgeous hardcover version."—Book Riot/Swords & Spaceships

"Jemisin... is a writer of uncanny gifts who is to a moral certainty one of the five best we have right now. ... How inadequate these brief synopses are to convey the sheet beauty to be found in these stories."—Sci-Fi

"There are so many things in How Long 'Til Black Future Month-from firebirds to Megacops, from truffles to hurricanes, from utopias (maybe) to civil rights marches-that it's impossible to describe. Except to say that every single story here is riveting, provocative, and remarkable. An extraordinary story collection from an extraordinary writer!"—Connie Willis, Hugo and Nebula Award winner

"Energizing in the way the best science fiction aims to be, forcing readers to look back on the 'real' world with new and eager eyes."—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"Established fans of Jemisin's work and general fantasy and sf readers alike should check out this collection of diverse and exciting new speculative fiction."—Booklist

"These stories are wonderful. In worlds both invariably cruel and brilliantly imagined, heroism thrives in the margins."—Nicky Drayden, author of The Prey of Gods

Jemisin's body of work already spans an extraordinary and "astonishing terrain. Science fiction and fantasy have always been the genres of my heart, and Jemisin is an absolute master. Like Ursula K. Le Guin, she is a visionary who shows us our world by remaking it in stories."—Kelly Link

"A brilliant example of how we in the present are making the future with our actions and how the future may exist in our past... What is also evident in this short story collection is that Ms. Jemisin can write anything. Her prose, sometimes pulsing, encourages you to read at different tempos as if she is conducting an orchestra. Slow moving tension and suspense make you fearful, but then entices you into reading the next sentence. Lush descriptive passages conjure cinematic vistas."—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"The true breadth of [Jemisin's] talent ... comes through to grand effect in her first collection of short fiction... Jemisin is an essential voice in modern-day SFF."—B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

From the Publisher

There is…much…to love in this collection. Some of the stories are good old-fashioned science-fiction yarns shot from new angles, like "Walking Awake," a response to Robert A. Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters," in which a middle-aged caregiver raising human children whose bodies will eventually be taken over by parasitical aliens experiences a moment of revolutionary awakening. "The Trojan Girl," a fleet-footed cyberpunk thriller, conjures a gang of digital entities, artificial intelligences gone rogue, roaming a virtual universe and seeking access to a greater reality. "Valedictorian," a follow-up set in the same world but much later, after the AIs have merged with some of humanity, features one of the determined, defiant girls that often turn up in Jemisin's work, then flips her view of her society upside down. Any fan of the Broken Earth novels will eagerly seize upon "Stone Hunger," set in that series' universe, in which another fierce girl, an "orogene" with the power to stoke or subdue geological tensions, pursues the man who destroyed her city.

The New York Times Book Review - Laura Miller

★ 11/15/2018

In this career-spanning collection, Jemisin ("The Broken Earth" trilogy) delivers 22 thrilling stories of black strength in the face of worldly and otherworldly adversity. In "The Ones Who Stay and Fight," guardians of a thriving world parallel to ours watch over humans and toil with ruthless compassion to avoid falling prey to common prejudices or repeating mistakes. In "The Valedictorian," a girl who has always defied convention to pursue greatness in the shadow of war learns the true cost of failure and the terrifying burden of success. In "The Storyteller's Replacement," an unnamed narrator tells of a foolish king who consumes a dragon's heart in the hope of siring sons and the cunning, dragon-hearted daughters he fathers instead. In "The Effluent Engine," a Haitian spy infiltrates slavery-shackled America in search of technology to safeguard free Haiti against threatening French influence. There she meets a beautiful Creole chemist who could secure Haiti's future and steal her heart in the process. VERDICT This robust collection is a worthy introduction to three-time Hugo Award winner Jemisin's powerful work for curious newcomers and is sure to delight the author's many fans.—Idris Grey, Houston

Library Journal

A stellar cast of seven narrators takes turns performing this collection of shorter pieces by science-fiction novelist Jemisin. Each narrator drills down to the core of the story, developing believable accents and highlighting the characters’ personalities. Listeners will be impressed with how complete each story feels, almost as if this were a collection of novellas. Jemisin opens the audiobook with an explanation of how she came to write these pieces, some of which were later expanded into novels. The stories stand on their own but share themes such as feminism, otherness, relationships, motherhood, power, fertility, and dreams. Listeners will appreciate the mix of settings, including a futuristic New York, a Katrina-suffering New Orleans, and off-planet settlements. This outstanding audiobook is the season’s must-listen title. C.B.L. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

A stellar cast of seven narrators takes turns performing this collection of shorter pieces by science-fiction novelist Jemisin. Each narrator drills down to the core of the story, developing believable accents and highlighting the characters’ personalities. Listeners will be impressed with how complete each story feels, almost as if this were a collection of novellas. Jemisin opens the audiobook with an explanation of how she came to write these pieces, some of which were later expanded into novels. The stories stand on their own but share themes such as feminism, otherness, relationships, motherhood, power, fertility, and dreams. Listeners will appreciate the mix of settings, including a futuristic New York, a Katrina-suffering New Orleans, and off-planet settlements. This outstanding audiobook is the season’s must-listen title. C.B.L. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile