Novels are great. I’ve written one myself. I have also written many short stories for major science fiction and fantasy publishing venues—Asimov’s, F&SF, Analog, Lightspeed, etc. But there is something special about single-author short story collections. They are like tasting platters. They reveal running themes and can be a unique way to explore places—through the imaginations of its authors. For example, many of my stories are set in or feature characters from Nigeria. I hope you enjoy the books on this list and that they show you something new about Africa and what (some) African authors dream about.
An elderly woman in Nigeria is called in to help test the artificial intelligence built from her genius mother’s mind in the Nommo-award-winning story “The Regression Test”. Exiled from Earth for a crime of passion, a man must learn to survive on Mars and come to peace with his past in “Polaris”. “Wednesday’s Story”, nominated for the Caine Prize, is at once a retelling of nursery rhymes and folklore and a meta-fictional meditation on the mechanics and power of storytelling.
From the bustling streets of Lagos to the icy moons of Jupiter, this stunning collection of stories from the vivid imagination of an award-winning writer explores what it means to be African in a world of accelerating technology, diverse beliefs, and unlimited potential.
Kabu Kabu takes its name from Nigerian slang for a dodgy taxi that gets you where you need to go, one way or the other. It’s a fitting name for this short story collection, which took me on a journey of twenty-one stories that include excellent science fiction, fantasy, horror, and excerpts from her wildly popular and award-winning novels. Drawing from her own Naijamericanheritage and using a skillful balance of characters, plot, setting, and themes, Okorafor offers an array of stories based on dual identities, folklore, philosophy, and contemporary issues filtered through a speculative lens.
Kabu kabu-unregistered illegal Nigerian taxis-generally get you
where you need to go. Nnedi Okorafor's Kabu Kabu, however, takes
the reader to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always
imaginative locations you didn't know you needed. This debut short story
collection by an award-winning author includes notable previously published
material, a new novella co-written with New York Times-bestselling author
Alan Dean Foster, six additional original stories, and a brief foreword by
Whoopi Goldberg.
This collection by one of Uganda’s premier speculative fiction writer/directors features strange, wonderful worlds and deeply fascinating characters with compelling stories uncompromisingly but accessibly rooted in African perspectives and mythologies and I’ve recommended it often. Sometimes leaning literary, other times heavily genre, Dilman has a gift for layering the fantastic on top of the real. The bizarre over the mundane. The prose is direct and clear, and the descriptions are lush. Every story here makes great use of East African culture, mythology, folklore, politics, and everyday life to tell great stories which anyone can enjoy.
‘A Killing in the Sun’ is a collection of speculative fiction from Africa. It draws from the rich oral culture of the author’s childhood, to tell a wide variety of stories. Some of the stories are set in a futuristic Africa, where technology has transformed everyday life and a dark force rules. Others are set in the present day, with refugee aliens from outer space, ghosts haunting brides and grooms, evil scientists stalking villages, and greedy corporations creating apocalypses. There are murder mysteries, tales of reincarnation and of the walking dead, and alternative worlds whose themes any reader will identify…
Beukes has range and a keen eye, two things that are showcased perfectly in this collection. Experimenting in style, in genre, in tone, in point of view, in everything really. A lot of the stories are overtly speculative, but not all of them are, even though they have a speculative sensibility. Some stories are under 100 words, others closer to 10,000. As someone who enjoys experimental writing, I loved this book. Almost every story features the recurring theme of dehumanization, and they are largely set in South Africa or featuring South African characters. And if that wasn’t enough, there are even 5 nonfiction pieces from her time as a journalist. It's excellent reading.
A Punk Lolita fighter-pilot rescues Tokyo from a marauding art installation. Corporate recruits harvest poisonous plants on an inhospitable planet. An inquisitive adolescent ghost disrupts the life of a young architect. Product loyalty is addictive when the brand appears under one's skin.
Award-winning Cape Town author and journalist Lauren Beukes (Zoo City, Moxyland, Broken Monsters) spares no targets in this edgy and satiric retrospective collection. In her fiction and nonfiction, ranging from Johannesburg across the galaxy, Beukes is a fierce, captivating presence throughout the literary landscape.
I really enjoyed this excellent, ethereal collection of stories from Booker Prize winner Ben Okri who, from early on, has always infused the supernatural and dream logic into his literary work to get at a deeper truth in his very grounded stories about post-independence Nigeria and Nigerians. The lightest on its speculative elements out of all the books I’ve recommended, it’s also a great entry point for literary fiction fans looking to ease into the more flighty and wild parts of African speculative fiction. There are all the realities of life – anxiety, joy, poverty, war, love, but there are spirits and strange things too. Okri’s writing lures you in and takes you on a journey to observe Nigerian life from a skewed angle with unexpected tenderness.
Incidents at the Shrine is the first collection of stories by the author of 1991 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road. Whether the subject is a child's eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri's lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.
This is a short but excellent collection of short stories that focus more on voice, concept, character, and theme than traditional plots, especially when compared to some of the other collections I have recommended but wow, does it deliver on its strengths. I like this book for its colorful and layered writing used to describe new and inventive spins on township folklore galore, tortured friendships and families, unique community bonds, and South Africans in space. These stories linger in the mind and there aren’t a lot of better ways to jump into some of South Africa’s weirdest waters than this.
Orphan sisters chase monsters of urban legend in Bloemfontein. At a busy taxi rank, a woman kills a man with her shoe. A genomicist is accused of playing God when she creates a fatherless child. Intruders is a collection that explores how it feels not to belong. These are stories of unremarkable people thrust into extraordinary situations by events beyond their control. With a unique and memorable touch, Mohale Mashigo explores the everyday ills we live with and wrestle constantly, all the while allowing hidden energies to emerge and play out their unforeseen consequences. Intruders is speculative fiction at its…
On the expertise I claim only a deep interest in history, leadership, and social history. After some thirty-six years in the fire and emergency services I can, I think, claim to have seen the best and the worst of human behaviour and condition. History, particularly naval history, has always been one of my interests and the Battle of Jutland is a truly fascinating study in the importance of communication between the leader and every level between him/her and the people performing whatever task is required. In my own career, on a very much smaller scale, this is a lesson every officer learns very quickly.
Captain Heron finds himself embroiled in a conflict that threatens to bring down the world order he is sworn to defend when a secretive Consortium seeks to undermine the World Treaty Organisation and the democracies it represents as he oversees the building and commissioning of a new starship.
When the Consortium employs an assassin from the Pantheon, it becomes personal.
Captain James Heron First Into the Fray: Prequel to Harry Heron Into the Unknown of the Harry Heron Series
The year is 2202, and the recently widowed Captain James Heron is appointed to stand by his next command, the starship NECS Vanguard, while she is being built. He and his team soon discover that they are battling the Consortium, a shadowy corporate group that seeks to steal the specs for the ship’s new super weapon. The Consortium hires the Pantheon, a mysterious espionage agency, to do their dirty work as they lay plans to take down the Fleet and gain supreme power on an intergalactic scale. When Pantheon Agent Bast and her team kidnap Felicity Rowanberg, a Fleet agent…
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