Eugen Bacon

From the queen of genre-bending speculative fiction, comes the newest Sau tiverse offering, a mystery like no other, where the investigator is not a detective, but a sound scientist. In a world where sound is a tangible force, Muso'mi is a maadiregi--an expert in the art of consuming it. At the prestigious Mahadum, she researches the language of silence, seeking to master the gift her mother calls theft. But academic intrigue turns to deadly peril when her friend vanishes after unearthing a hidden truth. Pursuing clues through pools of quietude across worlds, Muso'mi stumbles upon a horrifying discovery: a pattern of carnage left in fields of harvested silence. Now, the hunter becomes the hunted, as her unique expertise draws her into the orbit of a serial killer who understands the power of sound all too well. Includes a glossary of Bantu, Afrocentric and made-up words from this cross-cultural tale written in gorgeous lyrical language packed with emotion.

This is the follow up to the highly acclaimed 2021 anthology described as containing "some of the most exciting voices, old and new, from Africa and the diaspora, published in the 2020 year." The first won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology and was met with widespread critical acclaim from across the world, with the science fiction trade magazine, Locus, calling it a "must read." Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, who created the first anthology now joins forces with Eugen Bacon, a 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist and Milton Davis, an award-winning Black Speculative fiction writer and editor to introduce readers to an ever more diverse set of writers associated with Africa. This anthology is more than just a collection of stories; it is a testament to the power of speculative fiction to transcend boundaries and explore new horizons. It is highly recommended for anyone looking to delve into a world where the speculative meets the vibrantly diverse tapestry of African storytelling. Timely and relevant to today's world, the set of stories in this book will astonish, shock and amaze the reader while introducing them to a whole new world.

Cheryl S. Ntumy's fantasy and near-future sci-fi is powerful and unique. Black Friday: Short Stories from Africa is a collection of short stories exploring diverse themes ranging from rampant consumerism, corruption and oppression to community-building, faith, reclamation and healing, all with a speculative bent. Explore solarpunk set in Ghana, cyberpunk set in South Africa and dystopian fiction set in Botswana. Robots and aliens. Butterflies and elephants. Wedding dresses that make brides happy and electrified dresses that hold queens hostage. Consumer culture and permaculture. These are dark, sometimes bleak stories of war, grief and disillusionment, but also optimistic, wholesome tales of love, regeneration and hope. With mysteries, magical realism and cautionary tales, the collection has something for everyone. The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.

"Questa una spettacolare raccolta di storie provenienti dal Sud globale e dall'oceano che copre la maggior parte del nostro pianeta. Ogni volta che le tecnologie modificano le societ umane a un ritmo sempre pi accelerato, la fantascienza diventa la modalit letteraria preferita. Questo libro un segno di tale grande spostamento verso il futurismo visionario, che si dispiega per rivelare le possibilit utopiche ancora vive nel nostro presente. un piacere da leggere." Kim Stanley Robinson, autore de Il ministero del futuro Ecoceanica: Futuri dal Sud Globale propone storie dalle regioni costiere dell'Africa, del Mar Arabico, dell'Oceano Indiano e del Golfo del Bengala, estendendosi all'Australia e all'America Latina. Il volume ha offerto alle scrittrici e agli scrittori uno spazio per riflettere sulle esperienze passate del commercio marittimo, del colonialismo e dell'imperialismo. In queste narrazioni troviamo un tentativo di estrapolare scenari plausibili che derivano da tali esperienze storiche, sia verso il futuro prossimo che verso quello pi lontano, prevedendo le catastrofi ambientali che tali regioni si trovano ad affrontare nel momento del cambiamento climatico accelerato di origine antropica, nonch possibili alternative a livello micro e macro, che portano alla costruzione di trame distintive e varianti del novum della fantascienza.Ecoceanica si caratterizza quindi per una forma di futurismo oceanico del Sud, prendendo ispirazione da movimenti come il solarpunk che delineano approcci sia critici che alternativi agli attuali sistemi socioeconomici insostenibili che stanno mettendo a dura prova gli ecosistemi oceanici e le culture costiere. SommarioIntroduzione di Tarun K. SaintLa nuova frontiera di Kaiser Haq (Bangladesh)Mare Tranquillitatis di Soham Guha (India)Speranza alla fine del mondo di Chinaza Eziaghighala (Nigeria)La cercatrice d'acqua di Eugen Bacon (Tanzania/Australia)Flussi e deflussi di Sam Beckbessinger (Sudafrica)Parlo con mille voci di C sar Santiva ez (Per )Citt erose di Vajra Chandrasekera (Sri Lanka)I Had a Dream di Priya Sarukkai Chabria (India)La coltre e la luna di Thoraiya Dyer (Australia)Il nome del mondo Oceano di Vandana Singh (India)

Foreword INDIES - 2023 Finalist Science Fiction Something is happening to Green. He is an ordinary guy, time-jumping forward at a startling, uncontainable rate. He is grappling to understand his present; his relationship is wholly tattered; his ultimate destination is a colossal question mark. Zada is a scientist in the future. She is mindful of Green's conundrum and seeks to unravel it by going backwards in time. Can she stop him from jumping to infinity? Their point of intersection is fleeting but memorable, each one's travel impacting the other's past or future. And one of them doesn't even know it yet. Secondhand Daylight is a reverse story in alternate timelines between two protagonists whose lives must one day intersect. A titillating offering from World Fantasy Award-finalist Eugen Bacon, an Otherwise Fellowships honouree for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction'. In collaboration with three-time British Fantasy Society Award-winner Andrew Hook.

Danged Black Thing is an extraordinary collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, patriarchy and womanhood, from a remarkable and original voice. Traversing the West and Africa, they celebrate the author's hybridity with breathtaking sensuousness and lyricism.Simbiyu wins a scholarship to study in Australia, but cannot leave behind a world of walking barefoot, the orange sun, and his longing for a "once pillow-soft mother." In his past, darkness rose from the river and something nameless and mystical continues to envelop his life. In "A Taste of Unguja" sweet taarab music, full of want, seeps into a mother's life on the streets of Melbourne as she evokes the powers of her ancestors to seek vengeance on her cursed ex. In the cyberfunk of "Unlimited Data" Natukunda, a village woman, gives her all for her family in Old Kampala. Other stories explore what happens when the water runs dry-and who pays, capture the devastating effects on women and children of societies in which men hold all the power, and themes of being, belonging, and otherness.Speculative, realistic, and even mythological, but always imbued with truth, empathy, and Blackness, Danged Black Thing is a literary knockout.

After falling out with her brothers, Samaki the goddess of water flees to Earth where she must mask her trace by splitting into a quadruplet of magi.A quadruplet is perfect, but all things are never equal. Dissonance arises when the magus Umozi breaks the quadruplet.Only the newness of a child magus can restore balance and save a broken paradise-with the help of a goddess mother.

In this debut collection of personal essays, Eugen Bacon offers critical perspectives on blackness, Afrofuturism, colonialism, historicity, and (mis)recognition as she explores the untapped possibilities of speculative fiction. Using a variety of analytic, narrative, and anecdotal techniques, Bacon shares her experiences as an African Australian woman, mother, and writer who occupies a liminal space that is "betwixt" worlds and genres. She also considers work by "other" writers-ranging from Roland Barthes and Jorge Luis Borges to Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Sheree Ren e Thomas-in an effort to chart a path towards greater social and cultural truth. Literary, adventurous, and insightful, An Earnest Blackness excavates the world(s) that not only construct contemporary authorship but the fluid nature of identity itself.

In the dystopian world of Mafinga, Jasmin must contend with a dictator’s sorcerer to cleanse the socialist state of its deadly pollution.Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin’s husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi’s secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin’s crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death. Fate grants a cruel reprieve in the service of a childless queen who claims Jasmin’s children as her own. Jasmin is powerless—until she discovers secrets behind the king and his sorcerer.

A volume of exquisite prose poetry and speculative micro-lit pieces by internationally renowned author Eugen Bacon. Forty-eight compositions in all, comprising twenty-six previously published and twenty-two original pieces written specially for this book.Complementing the written word are a series of full page illustrations commissioned by the author from artist Elena Betti; thirty-five stunning images that enhance the reading experience."Through the prism of sharp speculative fiction, the darkest hues of our world are revealed, reflected, refracted into a myriad of brilliant shards. Each piece dazzles, cutting quick and deep. Absolutely unforgettable." - Lisa L. Hannett, award-winning author of Songs for Dark Seasons"Such energy, boldness, and unexpected leaps and turns; whether going at a cracking pace or pausing reflectively, the fiction in this quirky work is vibrant and engaging. As a multi-media work, it is page-turning and confronting. Powerful stuff." - Dominique Hecq, award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer

Black Moon is an illustrated collection of speculative flash fiction mixed with prose poetry. It carries themes of love and war, life and the afterlife, hope and despair. It is a philosophical assortment that questions normalcy, embraces opposition, and takes a keen interest on peculiarity. It will appeal to curious lovers of literary dark fantasy.

Long ago, a good man transgressed and was brutally punished, his physical form killed and his soul split asunder. Now, one half of his ancient soul seeks to reunite with its lost twin, a search that leaves murder in its wake...In the streets of modern day Sydney a killer stalks the night, slaughtering innocents, leaving bodies mutilated. The victims seem unconnected, yet Investigating Officer Ivory Tembo is convinced the killings are anything but random. The case soon leads Ivory into places she never imagined. In order to stop the killings and save the life of the man she loves, she must reach deep into her past, uncover secrets of her heritage, break a demon's curse, and somehow unify two worlds.Ivory's Story deftly combines the contemporary thriller with darker, older traditions, and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice on the genre fiction scene."A new star is born in the emerald skies of Fantasy, and its name is Eugen Bacon." - Nuzo Onoh, author of The Reluctant Dead "A murder mystery, an adventure story and a spiritual journey all rolled up into one, which not only entertains but also leaves us pondering the deeper questions." - Denise O'Hagan, author of The Beating Heart"Ivory's Story speaks of places and moments that bind us. The myths and mysteries that draw us in. A powerful blend of African and Australian speculative fiction." - Dominique Hecq, award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer

Eugen Bacon's work is deemed cheeky with a fierce intelligence in text that's resplendent, delicious, dark and evocative. NPR called her novel Claiming T-Mo 'a confounding mysterious tour de force.' The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories imbues the same lushness in a writerly language that is Bacon's own. This peculiar hybrid of the untraditional, the extraordinary within, without and along the borders of normalcy will hypnotize and absorb the reader with tales that refuse to be labeled. The stories in this collection are dirges that cross genres in astounding ways. Over 20 provocative tales, with seven original to this collection, by an award-winning African-Australian author.