It did take me just a little work at the beginning of the book to get into it. If you hated Moby-Dick for its pacing, or lack thereof, and for all its digressions, you’ll almost certainly hate Hell’s Heart too. If you hate disaster characters, you’ll cringe at many decisions made by “I.” But there’s much more than enough in here to keep an attentive reader thoroughly engaged and entertained. I thought it was great!
If it wasn’t clear by now, in addition to being very good comics, this is very good science fiction. There are many ways to approach science fiction in the comics form, but this might be the most genuinely speculative, the most deeply considered and textured, the most well-thought-out future history of any comic I’ve read since my old friend Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder – and Finder was one of my favorite comics of all time. There are no SFFnal elements that feel extraneous, tacked-on, or like they’re there just for Rule of Cool.
Coming up in March we’re planning a podcast Signal Boost interview with writer/editor Tonya R. Moore about The Cookout, an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories by Black authors of the African diaspora, centering on the traditions of “the cookout” — the joy, the drama, and the delicious food! A Kickstarter campaign is currently going on to support the anthology and help pay the contributors, who include Brent Lambert, Eden Royce, DaVaun Sanders, and Sheree Renée Thomas to date. There is just FIVE more days left to support this campaign, before we have the live recording with Moore or are able to release the podcast, so we’re also boosting this now on the blog. They are close to their goal, so be sure to check it out and help if you are able! Moore is a Jamaican speculative fiction writer and editor based in Florida. She is the editor-in-chief at Rogue Star Magazine, Poetry Editor at Solarpunk Magazine, and an associate writer at Galactic Journey. Her latest short story publications include “Water Baby”, published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and “Anansi and the Astronaut”, published in the Spacefunk! Anthology. Moore is co-editing the collection with three others: 1) Erin Brown, a poet and author of horror, fabulist, and fantasy short fiction who has been published in FIYAH, Nightmare, Midnight and Indigo, The Deadlands, and many other venues, 2) Emmalia Harrington, a disabled QBIPOC novelist of Walk on Grey Ruins, whose short stories can be found at FIYAH, Abyss and Apex, Flame Tree Press, and elsewhere, and 3) P.C. Verrone, an author and playwright whose work has appeared in FIYAH, Nightmare, PodCastle, and numerous anthologies, and whose debut novel Rabbit, Fox, Tar is forthcoming from Catapult this year. Why The Cookout? How did this idea come about? Find more information on The Cookout and its editors/contributors on its website. And help support the project on Kickstarter.
Ten years ago marked the centennial anniversary of The Best American Short Stories annual series of anthologies, first published by Small, Maynard & Company and now released by Mariner Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It took one hundred years, but that anniversary was also the birth of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (BASFF) spin-off series under the editorialship of John Joseph Adams. (In contrast, the crime/mystery/suspense genre had already gotten its own series starting in 1997.) The decade of volumes since its inception has seen a diverse range of annual guest editors for BASFF, starting with Joe Hill in 2015 through Nnedi Okorafor for the latest 2025 volume. Each year the guest editors bring their own unique perspectives and tastes to the collection but work within a system with Adams to fit the overall series. And that overall series has a particular perspective itself, one attuned to the more mainstream literary auspices of The Best American Short Stories parent series. Thus, as with any “Best of” anthology, a reader is going to get a rather limited and by necessity somewhat personalized collection of stories that align with the editor’s tastes and the artistic viewpoints of the publisher/series. This is all to say that though there are a host of various “Best of” anthologies each year, it really does pay for short fiction fans to read a wide range of them, particularly if one isn’t keeping up with all the short fiction publication outlets through the year.
Operation Bounce House is more grounded and more thoughtful than Dungeon Crawler Carl, but just as exciting.
Black Ambrosia is quiet, introspective and slowly draws the reader into the mind of its unreliable protagonist Angelina’s mind, slowly revealing the building consequences of her thoughts and actions.
