Some of the pieces are simple yet highly enjoyable ... If Jemisin has a weakness, however, it’s a propensity for didacticism ... There is, fortunately, much more to love in this collection. Some of the stories are good old-fashioned science-fiction yarns shot from new angles ... This collection features many similarly uncanny moments in which the human integrates with what feels profoundly inhuman. (Jemisin does creepy so well, it’s enough to make you wish she’d try a straight-up horror novel — another genre that could really use more black writers.) The stories here teem with impostors, parasites and hybrids. Sometimes they must be fought off, but this is one science-fiction author who does not take that stance reflexively. Expand your notion of what we can be, she suggests. Recognize that change is inevitable and often strengthening. Don’t kid yourself that the alternative is safety; the alternative is death.
Established fans of Jemisin’s work and general fantasy and sf readers alike should check out this collection of diverse and exciting new speculative fiction.
But one of the most marvelous aspects of this gorgeously Afrofuturist collection is that it's also, ironically, a time capsule. Containing stories written between 2004 and 2017, it occasionally imagines futures grown from earlier moments of our shared lives on the internet — from LiveJournal, from fora and discussion boards — that tripped me into nostalgia for earlier, more innocent visions of apocalypse ... That said, the collection isn't organized chronologically but thematically, like a symphony with distinct movements ... Jemisin's strengths lie at the intersection of character and setting, storytelling parts that definitely show to best effect in longer work, so I wasn't surprised to find the stories I loved most in this collection were connected to her novels ... There were stories that didn't quite come together for me, that I appreciated more for their ideas than their execution... But these were exceptions to a general rule of awe and admiration; overall these stories demonstrate a gathering strength, a flexing of new muscle.
Some of Jemisin’s strongest stories deal explicitly with the horrors of racism in a world that is recognizably our own ... Here as elsewhere she doesn’t flinch from portraying characters who face difficult, often terrible, choices and catastrophic events; but her deep compassion for her characters allows readers to breathe — and often grieve— alongside them. The author displays a lighter touch in two accounts of the power, emotional and magical, associated with sharing a good meal. This sense of communality extends through all her stories, especially those that extol the way that great cities irrevocably change their inhabitants and are in turn changed by them.
[Jemisin's] follow-up to The Broken Earth, a new collection of short fiction titled How Long ’til Black Future Month?, confirms that she’s one of science fiction and fantasy’s finest world-builders, but her work is also changing those genres in important ways: Jemisin’s writing is making space in science fiction and fantasy to better reflect—and to reimagine—the world in which we live ... In Jemisin’s writing, moving the margins to the middle gives us new ways to imagine the whole, and the threats we face are often monsters we make ourselves. Resilience, adaptation, and change: These are themes that Jemisin takes up in a wide range of stories.
How Long ’til Black Future Month? illustrates time and again that Jemisin’s skill isn’t limited to novels, nor is it limited to worlds of epic fantasy; her short fiction shows that Jemisin just has talent, and it shines no matter the world ... Jemisin’s vision is limitless, and in every story, in every world, you get the sense that she is testing the waters, tasting the air, getting a sense of how this genre works, and how she can best use it to her strengths. There’s something for everyone in these stories, and while they’re not in any sort of chronological order, there is a sensation throughout of a muscle flexing, of learning and pushing, growing stronger ... I’m happy to report that in How Long ’til Black Future Month? you’re treated to the evolution and growth of one of the best science fiction and fantasy writers currently working in the field, and get to, over the course of twenty and more stories, witness her becoming the writer we know and love today.
... a brilliant example of how we in the present are making the future with our actions and how the future may exist in our past ... Ms. Jemisin doesn’t make it easy for the reader — but in a very good way ... What is also evident in this short story collection is that Ms. Jemisin can write anything. Her prose, sometimes pulsing, encourages you to read at different tempos as if she is conducting an orchestra. Slow moving tension and suspense make you fearful, but then entices you into reading the next sentence. Lush descriptive passages conjure cinematic vistas.
How Long ‘til Black Future Month?, N. K. Jemisin’s new collection of short stories, is the perfect example of the [kind of collection you consume in one sitting]. Each of the pieces held within is masterfully written and beautifully imagined, making the book difficult to put down even as it flits from dragons in Earth’s ruined sky to predators among us to the relationship between machines and reality ... Anyone who appreciates Jemisin’s work, speculative fiction or simply the art of the short story shouldn’t miss this collection. But beware: once you get started, you might not be able to put it down. It’s just that good.
Passionately felt themes ... These stories span Jemisin’s career; they demonstrate both the growth and active flourishing of one of speculative fiction’s most thoughtful and exciting writers.
Powerful and mind-expanding stories ... pushes boundaries, experiments with format and theme, and challenges expectations ... Throughout these stories, Jemisin’s versatility is on full display, giving her diverse protagonists numerous chances to shine. Though not every story will resonate with every reader, there’s something in this collection for just about everyone, and many of the works are memorable gems. Those who only know Jemisin for her groundbreaking novels will be impressed all over again by her short fiction, and it serves as an excellent introduction for those unfamiliar with her work.
