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A review by palomapepper
Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson
4.0
If you're looking for a series of fantastical stories with a diverse cast of characters, Falling in Love with Hominids might be right up your alley! Most characters were ethnically diverse and/or LGBT, and the stories delve into mythological fare ranging from Shakespeare to Caribbean lore.
Like any short story collection, there were some hits and misses among these 18 stories. A few felt half-finished, like character studies that still needed expansion. Still others were so strange that they seemed beyond my comprehension. But Hopkinson's hits are REALLY hits!
Stories I liked:
The Easthound: In a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, children survive in fear of a transformation called “sprouting.”
Soul Case: A colony of former Afro-Caribbean slaves uses magic to defend against their ex-“owners”.
The Smile on the Face: In a twist on the old urban legend about swallowing fruit seeds and growing plants in your stomach, a teenage girl goes to a house party and faces an unexpected transformation.
Old Habits: Ghosts trapped in a mall long for life.
Stories I LOVED:
Message in a Bottle: An artist has a bizarre encounter with his friend’s unsettling child. This one has a dash of science fiction; there’s talk about speciesism, art, legacy, and the incomprehensible world of the future.
Left Foot, Right: A teenage girl, wearing a single high-heeled shoe, visits a river. I remember feeling viscerally stunned when I figured out what this story was actually about. (Sorry to be cryptic! It’s tough to summarize these stories without spoilers.)
Stories that were so bizarre, I didn’t know how to feel about ’em:
Herbal: An elephant bursts into a woman’s house.
A Raggy Dog, A Shaggy Dog: An eccentric collector of parasitic orchids tries an unusual impromptu dating service.
Stories that didn’t work for me:
Emily Breakfast: A pair of kinky husbands lose one of their chickens.
A Young Candy Daughter: A woman and her daughter seem to be at the center of magical, altruistic happenings.
Like any short story collection, there were some hits and misses among these 18 stories. A few felt half-finished, like character studies that still needed expansion. Still others were so strange that they seemed beyond my comprehension. But Hopkinson's hits are REALLY hits!
Stories I liked:
The Easthound: In a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, children survive in fear of a transformation called “sprouting.”
Soul Case: A colony of former Afro-Caribbean slaves uses magic to defend against their ex-“owners”.
The Smile on the Face: In a twist on the old urban legend about swallowing fruit seeds and growing plants in your stomach, a teenage girl goes to a house party and faces an unexpected transformation.
Old Habits: Ghosts trapped in a mall long for life.
Stories I LOVED:
Message in a Bottle: An artist has a bizarre encounter with his friend’s unsettling child. This one has a dash of science fiction; there’s talk about speciesism, art, legacy, and the incomprehensible world of the future.
Left Foot, Right: A teenage girl, wearing a single high-heeled shoe, visits a river. I remember feeling viscerally stunned when I figured out what this story was actually about. (Sorry to be cryptic! It’s tough to summarize these stories without spoilers.)
Stories that were so bizarre, I didn’t know how to feel about ’em:
Herbal: An elephant bursts into a woman’s house.
A Raggy Dog, A Shaggy Dog: An eccentric collector of parasitic orchids tries an unusual impromptu dating service.
Stories that didn’t work for me:
Emily Breakfast: A pair of kinky husbands lose one of their chickens.
A Young Candy Daughter: A woman and her daughter seem to be at the center of magical, altruistic happenings.