For this special issue of Lightspeed, I contributed a nonfiction essay called, “Assimilation: The Borg Must Like It When You Don’t Fight Back.” The essay was also made available for free online as part of the issue’s Kickstarter, but this special issue has way more to offer, including tons of fantastic fiction.
Full blurb below.
LIGHTSPEED was founded on the core idea that all science fiction is real science fiction. The whole point of this magazine is that science fiction is vast. It is inclusive. Science fiction is about people and for people—all kinds of people, no matter where they’re from or what they look like.
The People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! special issue exists to relieve a brokenness in the genre that’s been enabled time and time again by favoring certain voices and portrayals of particular characters. Here we bring together a team of POC writers and editors from around the globe to present science fiction that explores the nuances of culture, race, and history. This is science fiction for our present time, but also—most of all—for our future.
People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! is 100% written and edited by people of color, and is lead by guest editors Nalo Hopkinson and Kristine Ong Muslim, with editorial contributions from Nisi Shawl, Grace L. Dillon, Berit Ellingsen, Arley Sorg, and Sunil Patel. It features ten original, never-before-published short stories, plus ten original flash fiction stories, by writers such as Steven Barnes, Karin Lowachee, Sofia Samatar, Terence Taylor, Caroline M. Yoachim, and more. All that, plus five classic reprints, by the likes of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler; an array of nonfiction articles, interviews, and book reviews; and more than two dozen personal essays from people of colo(u)r discussing their experiences as readers and writers of science fiction.
Enjoy the destruction!