So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy
Lestpostcolonialin the subtitle intimidate, let it be noted that this is a strong anthology that, regardless of thematic concern, showcases authors with some real experience of colonization from all over the world. Given that so much sf is concerned with encounters with the other or alien intending domination, the genre and colonialism are, of course, not strangers. The book's five sections are "The Body," the last of whose contents, Larissa Lai's fascinating "Rachel," glimpses a readily familiar character; "Future Earth," including Vandana Singh's "Delhi," in which one Aseem is unstuck in the city's timestream; "Allegory," which features a particularly chilling and timely presentation of enforced otherness in Wayde Compton's "The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale"; "Encounters with the Alien," in which Greg van Eekhout's "Native Aliens" questions the nature of being alien; and "Re-imagining the Past," with Tobias S. Buckell's "Necahual," about a soldier in a "liberation army" more concerned with making a pure-human society than with living with the no longer purely human and the natives of colonized planets.Regina SchroederCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved