So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy [Paperback]

Science fiction has always led the way when it comes to exploring identity, with many writers offering radical reconstructions of sexuality, gender, and race. But for all its experimentation and theoretical diversity, the genre has been dominated by a remarkably narrow selection of voices, with its mainly white authors writing largely from a European tradition. The result is a lot of uncharted literary space, a void that So Long Been Dreaming fills by using the tropes and conventions of sci-fi to explore the legacy of colonialism--both in history and in the genre itself.

Co-editors Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan have selected writers from marginalized groups and asked them to use "massa's tools"--"stories that take the meme of colonizing the natives"--to rewrite the narratives of colonization and oppression. The result is an entirely new way of looking at science fiction and its presuppositions, one that offers a view from a parallel but profoundly different universe. Rising to the challenge, many of the writers collected here have appropriated familiar cultural models. Suzette Mayr adapts the Irish folk tale of the selkie--a mermaid-like creature--to explore notions of cultural displacement in "Toot Sweet Matricia," while in "Rachel" Larissa Lai highlights the ways in which the film Blade Runner glosses over issues of race. Tamai Kobayashi morphs Western social and cultural theories in "Panopte's Eye," a story of identity control in a post-apocalyptic military society in which Michel Foucault's panopticon makes a guest appearance. Nor is history itself exempt, as Eden Robinson uses the tensions of the Oka crisis and the fisheries disputes as source material for "Terminal Avenue," an examination of the psychology of assimilation.

The stories cover such a wide range of material--space opera, dimension travel, myth and fairy tale, fantasy, magic realism--that the anthology resists attempts to categorize it. It is not entirely science fiction, not entirely fantasy, not even entirely postcolonial literature. And this resistance is largely the point of So Long Been Dreaming. Such boundaries belong to the past, the anthology suggests, but we're living in the future now. --Peter Darbyshire

Lest postcolonial in 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 Schroeder
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. . . the editors have collected an excellent group of stories that often show finesse in approaching difficult subjects regardless of genre.
—Pop Matters (Pop Matters )

...the themes of the stories and the importance of the project are very strong.
—Science Fiction Research Association (Science Fiction Re.. )

It manages, somehow, to transcend that heavy millstone and kick some good ol' storytellin' ass.
—The Vancouver Rain Review of Books (Vancouver RainReview )

Arsenal Pulp Press has put together an edition worth owning.
—Challenging Destiny Online (Challenging Destiny )

...a strong anthology that, regardless of thematic concern, showcases authors with some real experience of colonization from all over the world.
—Booklist (Booklist )

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian, and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of colour.

Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre "speaks so much about the experience of being alienated, but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves." It's an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology.

The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the "third world." It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centred in the worlds of the "developing" nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into.

The wealth of postcolonial literature has included many who have written insightfully about their pasts and presents. With So Long Been Dreaming they creatively address their futures.

With an introduction by Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Samuel R. Delany.

Contributors to So Long Been Dreaming are Opal Palmer Adisa, Celu Amberstone, Ven Begamudre, Tobias S. Buckell, Wayde Compton, Andrea Hairston, Maya Khankhoje, Tamai Kobayashi, Larissa Lai, Karin Lowachee, devorah major, Suzette Mayr, Carole McDonnell, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Eden Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Sheree R. Thomas, and Greg van Eekhout.

(arsenalpulp.com )

From the cherub-like Hobbits in Lord of the Rings to the Techno-Messiah that is Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Trilogy, Western pop culture is brimming with images of white people fantasizing about being pushed to the margins. The what-if scenarios seem irrestitible to our society. What if machines rose up from their bondage and took over the world? What if Evil tried to swallow up the Good in the world, forcing It into a marginal existence?

So Long Been Dreaming:Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy is a book by thoughtful writers who know the margins. Eden Robinson, Wayde Compton, Larissa Lai, Sheree R. Thomas, it’s an international who’s who of postcolonial writing. So Long Been Dreaming is a place of covergence for the strongest voices and imaginations in Canadian Literature.

Contributors: Opal Plamer Adisa Celu Amberstone Ven Begamudre Tobias Buckell Wayde Compton Andrea Hairston Maya Khankhoje Tamai Kobayashi Larissa Lai Karin Lowachee devorah major Suzette Mayr Carole McDonnell Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu Eden Robinson Nisi Shawl Vandana Singh Sheree R. Thomas Greg van Eekhout

Nalo Hopkinson co-edited So Long Been Dreaming, an anthology of science fiction and fantasy by writers of colour, with Upppinder Mehan. She is the internationally acclaimed author of Brown Girl in the Ring,Skin Folk,and Salt Roads. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, and Philip K. Dick Awards; Skin Folk won a World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award. Born in Jamaica, Nalo moved to Canada when she was sixteen. She lives in Toronto.

Uppinder Mehan co-edited So Long Been Dreaming, an anthology of science fiction and fantasy by writers of colour, with Nalo Hopkinson. He is a scholar of science fiction and postcolonial literature. A South Asian Canadian he currently lives in Boston, and teaches at Emerson College.