Jahara Jayde Cosplay Is One Of My Favorites.

Y tu mamá también (2001, Alfonso Cuarón)

Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves at the center of this presence, attempting to shepherd an alien ambassador as chaos spreads in the city. A strange novel that mixes the supernatural with the alien, shifts between many different POVs, and gives a one of a kind look at a possible first contact.

Nubia: The Awakening (Nubia series) by Omar Epps & Clarence A. Hayes

Young adult. Three teens living in the slums of an enviromentally ravaged New York find that something powerful is awakening within them. They’re all children of refugees of Nubia, a utopian African island nation that sank as the climate worsened, and realize now that their parents have been hiding aspects of their heritage from them. But as they come into their own, someone seeks to use their abilities to his own ends, against their own people.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when the ship throws her a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Young adult. A century ago, an astronomer discovered a possibly Earth-like planet. Now, a team of veteran astronauts and carefully chosen teenagers are preparing to embark on a twenty-three year trip to get there. But space is dangerous, and the team has no one to rely on but each other if - or when - something goes wrong. An introspective slowburn of a story, this focuses more on character work than action.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

After the planet Sadira is left uninhabitable, its few survivors are forced to move to a new world. On Cygnus Beta, they work to rebuild their society alongside their distant relatives of the planet, while trying to preserve what remains of their culture. Focused less on hard science or action, The Best of All Possible Worlds is more about culture, romance and the ethics and practicalities of telepathy.

Mirage (Mirage duology) by Somaiya Daud

Young adult. Eighteen-year-old Amani lives on an isolated moon under the oppressive occupation of the Valthek empire. When Amani is abducted, she finds herself someplace wholly unexpected: the royal palace. As it turns out, she's nearly identical to the half-Valthek, and widely hated, princess Maram, who is in need of a body double. If Amani ever wants to make it back home or see her people freed from oppression, she will have to play her role as princess perfectly. While sci-fi, this one more has the vibe of a fantasy.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon

The planet Swazembi is a utopia of color and beauty, the most beautiful of all its citizens being the Rare Indigo. Lileala was just named Rare Indigo, but her strict yet pampered life gets upended when her beautiful skin is struck by a mysterious sickness, leaving it covered in scars and scabs. Meanwhile, voices start to whisper in Lileala's mind, bringing to the surface a past long forgotten involving her entire society.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed duology) by Octavia E. Butler*

In a bleak future, Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a gated community, one of few still safe places in a time of chaos. When her community falls, Lauren is forced on the run. As she makes her way toward possible safety, she picks up a following of other refugees, and sows the seeds of a new ideology which may one day be the saviour of mankind. Very bleak and scarily realistic, Parable of the Sower will make you both fear for mankind and regain your hope for humanity.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

War Girls (War Girls duology) by Tochi Onyebuchi

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds duology) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s a catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled-off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Eart trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin*

In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter. While mostly fantasy in genre, this series does have some sci-fi flavor, and is genuinely some of the best books I've ever read, please read them.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine's mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die.

The Blood Trials (The Blood Gifted duology) by N.E. Davenport

After Ikenna's grandfather is assasinated, she is convinced that only a member of the Praetorian guard, elite soldiers, could’ve killed him. Seeking to uncover his killer, Ikenna enrolls in a dangerous trial to join the Praetorians which only a quarter of applicants survive. For Ikenna, the stakes are even higher, as she's hiding forbidden blood magic which could cost her her life. Mix of fantasy and sci-fi. While I didn’t super vibe with this one, I suspect fans of action packed romantasy will enjoy it.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

1960s classic. Rydra Wong is a space captain, linguist and poet who is set on learning to understand Babel-17, a language which is humanity's only clue at the enemy in an interstaller war. But Babel-17 is more than just a language, and studying it may change Rydra forever.

Pet (Pet duology) by Akwaeke Emezi

Young adult novella. Jam lives in a utopian future that has been freed of monsters and the systems which created and upheld them. But then she meets Pet, a dangerous creature claiming to be hunting a monster still among them, prepared to stop at nothing to find them. While I personally found the word-building in Pet lacking, it deftly handles dark subjects of what makes a human a monster.

Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

Alternate history in which Africans colonized South America while vikings colonized the North. The vikings sell abducted Celts and Franks as slaves to the South, one of which is eleven-years-old Irish boy Aidan O'Dere, who was just bought by a Southern plantation owner.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Young adult dystopia. Ellie lives in a future where humanity is under the control of the alien Ilori. All art is forbidden, but Ellie keeps a secret library; when one of her books disappears, she fears discovery and execution. M0Rr1S, born in a lab and raised to be emotionless, finds her library, and though he should deliver her for execution, he finds himself obsessed with human music. Together the two embark on a roadtrip which may save humanity.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Lelah lives in future Botswana, but despite money and fame she finds herself in an unhappy marriage, her body controlled via microchip by her husband. After burying the body of an accidental hit and run, Lelah's life gets worse when the ghost of her victim returns to enact bloody vengeance.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Young adult. Fen de la Guerre, living in a quarantined Gulf Coast left devestated by storms and sickness, is forced on the run with a newborn after her tribe is attacked. Hoping to get the child to safety, Fen seeks to get to the other side of the wall, she teams up with a scientist from the outside the quarantine zone.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Space opera. Enitan just wants to live a quiet life in the aftermath of a failed war of conquest, but when her lover is killed and her sister kidnapped, she's forced to leave her plans behind to save her sister.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: The City We Became (Great Cities duology) by N.K. Jemisin, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

Costume. Chitons.

Slap Chop Remix

I was talking about old youtube and I just really needed it again.

I appreciate this.

I've been taking a look at these writing appliances lately. It's been difficult to justify the prices. At this point, the Freewrite Alpha is on pre-order for $299. I can get the Pomera DM250 for about $325 depending on exchange rate.

And in the essence that in this society I already have an excess of appliances, do I really need another one??

I'll just go back to writing my stories by hand in a notebook while I have decision paralysis on a fancy electronic typewriter.

I’m not at all surprised by my disappointment in [**this clumsily executed product reveal**](https://alphasmart.com/reveal/), which to my knowledge, doesn’t even include a video of any kind.

I am however, unexpectedly amused that they would go this far in riding the coat tails of the long-dead Alphasmart product lineage to conceive a new machine for a captive, special interest audience they have already proved they are vividly aware of, and yet, for all that effort, not only continue to alienate that audience, but deny themselves and their business most that the benefits that even attempting an “Alphasmart successor” device could potentially bring them.

Astrohaus accomplishes this, of course, by continuing their enforced fetishization of 20th Century typewriters, as though typewriters were used in the previous century because writers in that age harbored an ideological hostility toward the concept of editing, rather than simply wanting the most efficient mechanical means of writing that the technology of the era would allow for.

If Astrohaus is happy selling ten thousand machines to the Judy Funnies of the world who want a high-end statement piece to signal their affinity with 20th Century writers, rather than selling hundreds of thousands of machines to disabled students desperate to function normally in classrooms and express themselves, and to writers who care more about utility and freedom than having their creative processes dictated to them by a boutique manufacturer of luxury goods, then perhaps they’ll get the returns they are hoping for.

I’m further amused that one of the aspects of the Alphasmart devices Astrohaus decided was important to copy was the lack of a backlit screen.

Back when Astrohaus was attempting to dunk on the continued use of aging Alphasmart devices, and woo Alphasmart users over to the Freewrite by saying something in their copy to the general effect of, “Let’s upgrade you to a proper writing tool.”, at least Astrohaus could boast that their device had a lit screen while the Alphasmart Neo 2 didn’t.

I’d love to know where between the $350 MSRP of the Alpha and the $650 asking price of the standard issue Freewrite does a writer deserve to have a lit screen, but it certainly isn’t at the $500 price point of the Freewrite Traveler.

Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance SP, a children’s toy from twenty years ago, had a backlit screen. It launched at $100 USD ($161 at 2022 currency rates), was considered low end tech even for the time, and was generally used to keep preteen brats quiet in the back seat during trips to the supermarket.

Meanwhile, not only do Astrohaus’s Alpha, at $350, but also the Freewrite Traveler at $500, lack backlit screens, but both of these machines are positioned as high-end, sophisticated creative tools for language artists willing to pay above and beyond to have a Grade A experience for word processing functionality – functionality that is bundled as default with even the most primitive modern device that any writer in the developed world would have needed access to in order to browse and make purchases from the Astrohaus website to begin with.

Writers aren’t outbidding each other to get increasingly old, increasingly expensive, and increasingly coveted decades-old Alphasmart devices, and then doing extensive refurbishment and modification projects on them, in order to remove the arrow keys so they can write while being “freed” from the odious distraction of an easily movable cursor.

Writers are refurbishing and modifying their Alphasmarts in order to add screen lights to them.

For Astrohaus to design a product as a successor to the Alphasmart, and decide to carry forward the old Alphasmart’s lack of a backlight, but remove the Alphasmart’s inclusion of arrow keys, which have been standard on nearly every modern keyboard produced in the last thirty-five years, (other than those designed by Astrohaus) is not merely throwing out the baby and keeping the old bathwater – it’s keeping the old bathwater, bottling it for sale as a luxury item, and then burning down the perfectly intact house the bathwater originated from, with the baby still inside.

Of course, it could be the case that the Alpha by Astrohaus does have a lit screen after all, which would call into question their copy writing ability, and as an extension, their authority to not only produce writing devices, but to dictate to writers what their writing process is supposed to be, in which editing is either explicitly disallowed, or made deliberately as cumbersome as possible in order to discourage it.

I’m fascinated if the rumors that members of the company behind the original Alphasmart devices were consulted, contacted, or hired by Astrohaus in relation to the development of the Alpha are true, and that if they are true, to what extent they were actually listened to – as I’m quite certain if the design philosophy behind the original Alphasmart product line resembled that of Astrohaus, those devices would not have had the success that they did enjoy for a while before they sadly fizzled out.

Many months ago I listened to some bigwig from Astrohaus who’s name I don’t recall being interviewed on a podcast. At one point he said something to the immediate effect of wanting the Freewrite to become a declaration piece that writers would use to signal to peers and clients that they are serious about their craft.

On the other hand, on the online writing community which seems more dedicated than any other that I’m aware of to discussing and displaying purpose-made electronic writing and word processing equipment - which in many cases happens to be rare and expensive - Astrohaus and the Freewrite device family has been the butt of jokes for years, and it seems to be more of a mark of distinction to see how far someone is willing to go to use any possible solution other than a Freewrite, even if it’s literally hacked together with crudely assembled spare parts in someone’s garage.

It’s sad for Astrohaus that the King Jim Pomera DM 100, an out-of-production device more than a decade old, that was created in Japan, and designed chiefly to perform word processing in a language that I can not speak or read, seems set to continue to serve me better as an English-literate written word artist for years to come, than a newly announced machine designed in my own home town of New York City, that hasn’t even hit the market yet.

There’s no way I could be this emotionally involved with this unfolding story without being sure that my paid 1$ pre-order for the Alpha was secured without delay or hesitation.

For me, the $250 pre-shipping is worth the utility of being able to say that I put my own money on the line to give a device in the Freewrite family a fair and extensive trial, and can speak from hundreds of hours of experience in using it. I say this because as much as I vocally criticize and challenge Astrohaus, I have been conscious of the fact I’ve spent years tearing this firm apart without having laid hands on one of their products.

Perhaps writing is believing – my dollar is on the table, with 249 more to follow it, but if the product rollout is as smoothly executed as the botched hype for the reveal of the Alpha’s product page, this may be a long and rocky waiting period.

Though to Astrohaus’s credit, they have actually consistently delivered on past electronics hardware projects geared to niche hobbyist markets, even if delayed; which in a world of Coleco Chameleons, Polymegas, and Intellivision Amicos, is more of a unique and distinctive statement than plopping one of Astrohaus’s deliberately crippled contraptions on the table of a coffee house ever could ever be.

The best part of today’s announcement to me is the fact that Astrohaus either had the restraint not to use the legacy Alphasmart branding for this device (only for the teaser site URL for whatever reason), or felt it as beneath them to actually do so, in spite of the obvious intent to mimic Alphasmart in as many ways as possible, all while maintaining that unique Astrohaus pretentious gimmick charm.

(FYI, I wrote every word this on a NEO 2, LOL.)

Writing by me.

Product photo by Astrohaus.

Art by KeetahSpacecat.

[Twitch] [VOD Channel] [Writing FA] [Ko-fi]

Love to the mars rovers family!

Haven't seen anything about Ingenuity on tumblr yet, so I guess I'll make a post about it

Ingenuity (sometimes called Ginny) was an companion craft to Perseverance, one of the rovers currently on Mars. As opposed to any of the past rovers, however, Ingenuity was a rotorcraft intended to fly above Mars' surface.

After landing on Mars in February of 2021 and completing its first flight on April 19th, 2021, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly on another planet. Its original goal was only 5 flights, but it well surpassed that number, logging 72 flights with over two hours of in-air time.

On January 18th, 2024, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance midway through a flight, and a few days later, NASA had confirmation that the rotors were damaged, leaving Ingenuity incapable of flight.

So long, Ingenuity. You did so much <3

Source:

I got on this romantasy kick this year. It's been highly entertaining. I still don't get all the tropes but the enemies to lovers thing has been pretty wide in intensity.

Perhaps I'm still stuck being practical in some relationships, but when someone is abusing you or straight up tried to murder you, I find that really hard to find believable to get a romance out of it. Two series I've touched on so far that I can think of, Broken Bonds and I just started Zodiac Academy.

Broken Bonds started me off on this journey, and at first I was a bit 🙃 when it came to North and Nox. Honestly, none of their behavior is actually excusable on how they treat Oleander. But over the range of books I've now read, including the first book in Zodiac Academy it seems kind of tame in retrospect.

I've essentially spoiled some of it myself looking at the ZA hashtags, but seriously the abuse is top level in book one (the last event in the book for goodlord!) and I'm supposed to believe the FMCs still end up with some of these fools? Lol. (Ok, Orion actually seems redeemable for the same scene)

I'm still going to read the series because the setting is a bit insane which in turn is again, entertaining. It's fantasy, but hard pressed to actually see it as romance. Just because characters are sexy and hookup, isn’t that opposite of romance? It's more of a lustasy type story.

I do admit that I almost never read romance stories at all because they seemed boring and all the men were described like Fabio. ACOTAR has reached that level of boring romance by the end of book three.

The story ended in book 3 and I'm trying to power through the holiday filler episode. Feyre and Rhysand are in their plateau, which is why couples like Cassian and Nesta became more interesting. But is this how typical romance novels are structured? It's funny that Tamlin is so vilified because yeah, he was too controlling with Feyre and became the revengeful ex, he actually regretted his actions and tried to make amends to an extent and as far as I could see then left her alone. Compared to the FMC in ZA drowned by 4 hot men, this girl was almost dead and this is still going to turn into some relationship?? Lol.

It seems to me that if the FMC ends up with the abuser, it's hot and acceptable but if they aren't then yeah the MC was a total trash pile. Look, I love suspending belief for a fun story but I'm cracking up here.

Watch "Star Trek: The Original Series by Balenciaga" on YouTube

This just seems to work so well lol.

Some gameboy camera pics from a walk.