Dark matter: the nonluminous matter, not yet detected, that nonethelesshas detectable gravitational effects on the universe.Dark matter: the Afro-American presence and influences unseen or unacknowledgedby Euro-American culture. Dark Matter: the first anthology to illuminate the presence and influenceof black writers in speculative fiction, with 25 stories, three novel excerpts,and five essays.This anthology's critical and historical importance is indisputable. But that'snot why it will prove... (show more)

Dark matter: the nonluminous matter, not yet detected, that nonethelesshas detectable gravitational effects on the universe.Dark matter: the Afro-American presence and influences unseen or unacknowledgedby Euro-American culture. Dark Matter: the first anthology to illuminate the presence and influenceof black writers in speculative fiction, with 25 stories, three novel excerpts,and five essays.This anthology's critical and historical importance is indisputable. But that'snot why it will prove to be the best anthology of 2000 in both the speculativeand the literary fiction fields. It's because the stories are great:entertaining, imaginative, insightful, sharply characterized, and beautifullywritten. The earliest story in Dark Matter is acclaimed literary authorCharles W. Chesnutt's "The Goophered Grapevine" (1887), in which an agingex-slave tells a chilling tale of cursed land to a white Northerner buying aSouthern plantation. In "The Comet" (1920), W.E.B. Du Bois portrays the richwhite woman and the poor black man who may be the only survivors of anastronomical near-miss. In George S. Schuyler's "Black No More" (1931), anexcerpt from the satirical novel of the same name, an African American scientistinvents a machine that can turn blacks white. More recent reprints includescience fiction master Samuel R. Delany's Nebula Award-winning "Aye, andGomorrah..." (1967), which delineates the socio-sexual effects of asexualastronauts; Charles R. Saunders's heroic fantasy "Gimmile's Songs" (1984), inwhich a woman warrior encounters a singer with a frightening, compelling magicin ancient West Africa; MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Octavia E. Butler'spowerful "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987), in which the curefor cancer creates a terrifying new disease of compulsive self-mutilation; andDerrick Bell's angry, riveting "The Space Traders" (1992), in which aliens offerto trade their advanced technology to the U.S. in exchange for its blackpopulation. Other reprints include "Ark of Bones" (1974) byauthor-poet-folklorist Henry Dumas; "Future Christmas" (1982) by master satiristIshmael Reed; "Rhythm Travel" (1996) by playwright-poet-critic Amiri Baraka (whohas also written as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka); and "The AfricanOrigins of UFOs" (2000) by London-based West Indian author Anthony Joseph.Most of the stories in Dark Matter are original; these range even morewidely in their concerns and themes. In the generation ship of Linda Addison's"Twice, at Once, Separated," a Yanomami Indian tribe preserves its culture incoexistence with technology, while visions tear a young woman from her ownwedding. Bestselling novelist Steven Barnes examines degrees of privilege anddeprivation when an African American woman artist is trapped in an Africanconcentration camp in his unflinching contribution, "The Woman in the Wall." InJohn W. Campbell Award winner Nalo Hopkinson's sexy, scary "Ganger (BallLightning)," two lovers drifting apart try to reconnect through the separationof virtual sex. A mystic power awakens in the devastated future of AmaPatterson's gorgeous and tough "Hussy Strutt." An artist's infidelity changestwo generations in Leone Ross's astute, magic-realist "Tasting Songs." In NisiShawl's sharp, witty mythic fantasy "At the Huts of Ajala," the spirit of amodern woman must outwit a god before she is even born. Others contributing newstories are Tananarive Due, Robert Fleming, Jewelle Gomez, Akua Lezli Hope,Honor+e Fanonne Jeffers, Kalamu ya Salaam, Kiini Ibura Salaam, EvieShockley, and Darryl A. Smith. --Cynthia Ward (show less)