“We Will Rise Again,” edited by Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older

I didn’t like this anthology as much as I thought I would, I am very sorry to say.

Part of this was the fault of when I chose to read this. Stories about fighting back against transphobia, racism, colonialism, fascism - they all hit a little too close to home - <vague gesture at everything>. These kinds of stories are absolutely necessary, but man can it be a drag - especially stories written by veterans of the trenches who know just how much of a demoralizing slog these fights can be. I tried to take inspiration from them, but in the historical moment we’re in they mostly left me tired and discouraged.

But, that being said, there were still some stories and essays that I loved. My favorites, in the order they show up in the book:

• “The Rise and Fall of Storm Bluff, Kansas: An Oral History” by Izzy Wasserstein - the story of an anarchist commune overrun by police/right-wing militias, told as a series of interviews after the fact. Made a lot of good points about the importance of witnessing, and not letting the fascists control the narrative.

• “Chupacabras” by Vida James. This one deals with the related problems of colonization and gentrification in the American colony of Puerto Rico (the term definitely applies).  And it asks the question - what if the solution to gentrification is to have a chupacabra eat the gentrifiers? As plans go, it definitely has the virtue of simplicity. This was very viscerally satisfying (pun intended) and much more on the horror end of the spectrum.

• “If You Could Stay on Earth” by Alejandro Heredia. A poor, trans, POC student in the Bronx did well enough on a national physics test to earn a spot on a mission to Europa, and is denied on the flimsiest of grounds. A group of his friends come together to fight this, despite the student in question’s lack of enthusiasm for being a cause and a symbol.

• “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?” by NK Jemisin is a nonfiction essay, and not included in her own anthology of the same name, I was surprised to learn. She talks about growing up loving science fiction, but having to look at the very edges of the genre to find stories of people looking like her that were treated as people (as opposed to savages, servants, or exotic sex fantasies). Part of why she became a writer was because those stories didn’t exist, so she set out to make them. And she was and is justifiably angry about this.

• “One of the Lesser-Known Revolutions" by Annalee Newitz. This one hit home for me, as I’ve been moderating r/Fantasy for over a decade now. The protagonist here is a person dealing with trauma of having been doxxed by right-wing internet assholes. This deals with the nuances of free speech, and what speech should be tolerated in public and what speech should not. Sure, everyone has the right to share their opinion. What’s been lost in this debate is the right of people to not be forced to listen to it.