New Suns
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Anthologies are hard to review. Do I focus on each individual story, or on the flow of the collection overall? One of my favorite aspects of anthologies is the mystery of going in blind, so today let’s just look at the collection as a whole. (Let me know in the comments if you would prefer a story-specific approach in future!)
This is a fantastic bedside or coffee table book, hanging out and waiting for the days when you have half an hour of free time and don’t want to start something you won’t be able to finish. Next time I read through this collection I’ll pair it with a local pear brandy, an incredible sipping drink that I really enjoy for exactly one small drink a night.
The goal of New Suns was to spotlight up and coming POC authors, and they nailed it. I found it while looking for more writing from Rebecca Roanhorse, and there were several stories in the collection I would love to see expanded or at least to read more from those authors. The drawback in this method was that while most individual stories were very impressive, there was little synergy between them. My favorite anthologies have a consistent thread - a similar prompt given to the authors or at least a common theme. The only requirements for New Suns was that the author be a Person of Color, and that it fall in the genre of Speculative Fiction. This is awesome from the perspective of ensuring that each story will be very distinct from anything you’ve likely read before, but it also makes for a jarring transition from story to story. Because of this, there’s really only one inevitable conclusion - this is a great anthology, provided you’re already at least vaguely familiar with the genre (Speculative fiction gets real weird my friends. Real weird) and tend to only read one story at a time.
CapRock Brandy from https://www.jackrabbithill.com/
