A review by lit_with_lindsey
A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by John Joseph Adams, Victor LaValle
4.0
My favorite kind of speculative fiction is dystopian fiction. I love it for the same reasons I love satire and non-fiction books about the dark side of the economy and technology.
The intent here is to play on Howard Zinn’s People’s History but to cast that marginalized point of view toward the future.
These 25 stories go beyond a bleak rendering of a dehumanizing future. Most of them include, not a promise, but a suggestion of something better peeking over the horizon.
The collection included cyberpunk, time loop weirdness, Afro- and Indigenous-Futurism, racist robots, genetically engendered dragons, et cetera. Almost every one of the stories was completely engrossing and compelling.
The intent here is to play on Howard Zinn’s People’s History but to cast that marginalized point of view toward the future.
These 25 stories go beyond a bleak rendering of a dehumanizing future. Most of them include, not a promise, but a suggestion of something better peeking over the horizon.
The collection included cyberpunk, time loop weirdness, Afro- and Indigenous-Futurism, racist robots, genetically engendered dragons, et cetera. Almost every one of the stories was completely engrossing and compelling.