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A review by nenya_kanadka
Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson
4.0
Falling In Love With Hominids lives up to its title. Some stories worked better for me than others, but there were a lot of really neat characters and the general impression I got fit very much into the theme Hopkinson discusses in the prologue, of all the different ways people find hope and connection. The "Emily Breakfast" story definitely stuck out to me. Others that have stuck with me in the month or two since I read this collection were the one with ghosts in a shopping mall and the Borderlands entry ("Ours Is The Prettiest"). Also the girl with one shoe (really sad!) and the one early in the collection with the girl, the creepy tree, and terrifying the shit out of an awful dude at a party (difficult to read at some points, but a solid story with a triumphant ending). And the one with the kids that grow super super slowly. Oh, and "The Easthound," the one that opens the collection.
This book combined three major things: Afro-Carribean culture, science fiction, and queer characters. Most of the science fiction I've read has starred mostly white and mostly straight characters (with some exceptions), and most of the queer literature I've read hasn't had much of a sci-fi bent, and I haven't read nearly enough non-Anglo literature at all. So it was really cool to read something in the genre of my heart where I felt really at home with so many LGBT+ characters (written like the author is either one of us or has spent a lot of time in queer communities, too) but where many of the characters had backgrounds and cultural references that were new to me. Kind of the reverse of so much where I'm alienated by the wall-to-wall straightness and too comfortable with the vaguely US/UK settings.
I definitely clicked more with this collection than I did with the other Hopkinson I've read (Sister Mine). Much less sexual assault and incest, heh, among other things!
This book combined three major things: Afro-Carribean culture, science fiction, and queer characters. Most of the science fiction I've read has starred mostly white and mostly straight characters (with some exceptions), and most of the queer literature I've read hasn't had much of a sci-fi bent, and I haven't read nearly enough non-Anglo literature at all. So it was really cool to read something in the genre of my heart where I felt really at home with so many LGBT+ characters (written like the author is either one of us or has spent a lot of time in queer communities, too) but where many of the characters had backgrounds and cultural references that were new to me. Kind of the reverse of so much where I'm alienated by the wall-to-wall straightness and too comfortable with the vaguely US/UK settings.
I definitely clicked more with this collection than I did with the other Hopkinson I've read (Sister Mine). Much less sexual assault and incest, heh, among other things!