Tag: Science Fiction

Letters to Addie: #2 – The Book Burning

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Dystopia, Micro Fiction, Mystery, Sci Fi, Shyla's Stories2 Comments

March 9,

Addie,

I’m sorry I couldn’t write sooner; things have been … well, I don’t know the word exactly. Something just isn’t right. I tried to keep track of my thoughts on paper, like you said; likes, dislikes, opinions, things I’ve seen, words I know – the stuff that makes me me. But it’s all gone. I came home one day and the notepad had all the used pages missing. Then they recalled the paper. All paper, Addie. Notepads, scrapbooks, books, printed media. Everything had to be handed over by February 28th, and on the 29th, they stormed houses and tore them apart looking for paper, Addie – Paper! It was all burned they say. There was a public demonstration where officials set fire to heaps and mounds of the stuff, but it probably wasn’t all of it. Some say they just incinerated the rest in – what do you call those things… where they cremate people. Anyways, it’s all gone. Now you know why I’m writing this on a napkin.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m starting to think you might be right. It’s like what you said that time, “control the medium, control the message.” I think you said it was a quote, but I can’t remember. All I know is I’m getting a distinct feeling that this is the beginning of something really, really big. I’ll keep you posted when I can. I hope these are getting to you. And I hope you enjoy the fruit basket I’m sending this one in.

I know I probably don’t have to say this to you of all people, but be careful. I love you.

Darcy.

P.S. Mom got hacked. They swapped everything out, but she seems to like her new name. Just some adolescent shit-disturbers, I think. She’s fine, though.

© Shyla Fairfax-Owen

Letters To Addie #1

 

 

Letters to Addie

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Dystopia, Horror, Mystery, Sci Fi, Shyla's Stories1 Comment

January 30,

Addie,

I guess I’ll just start with – I miss you. It’s a funny thing, mourning the loss of someone who isn’t quite gone, but certainly isn’t here. I have these momentary lapses of memory. I’ll see something that reminds me of you, or come across a meme I know would make you giggle. I’ll pull up your name on my contact list to send it your way and then I remember that you won’t see it. So, yeah, it’s a curious thing; missing you. 

But I’m getting used to it, I think. Because you’re not gone, but the digital you is gone. Everyone acts like that’s the same thing, but it’s not. That’s why I’m writing this letter to you – to the real you. I want you to know I haven’t forgotten you. And I’m not mad. That day you unplugged and left, I said some pretty shitty things. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t get it, how you could just throw away your whole life over some fear of something that you couldn’t show me. I’m stubborn like that though; I need evidence, a digital footprint – anything. I’m still like that Addie; I can’t lie and say I believe you. But I miss you, and I’m finally ready to do anything to get you back. So I’m going to find the proof Addie. I’m going to see it, and then I’m going to know you’re right. That you’re not crazy.

So I’ll start at the beginning. I remember the first thing you said. “These thoughts aren’t mine.”  You kept saying your thoughts and feelings were jumbled. You started unplugging at night to try to clear them up, but that just made things blurrier. You said it was too late for you. Well, if you’re theory is right, there’s still plenty of time for me. So I’m going to start writing down my thoughts. Pen and paper, just like you said, so they can’t access them. You must be thinking, why now? Like I said, I miss you. 

I’ll write again soon. I love you.

Darcy.

P.s. mom is fine.


Manufactured Immortality

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Fantasy, Sci Fi, Shyla's Stories3 Comments

Kato approached the window and laid his hand upon the cool, hard, glass. On the other side of it lie his trusted advisor, and surrogate big brother, unconscious. It had been exactly thirteen hours since the craft crashed, nearly taking Hays’ life. What was left of it, flesh and bone, was practically unsalvageable. As he watched the galaxy’s most renowned doctors busy about Hays’ crushed, inoperative, body – Kato couldn’t help but wonder if making him cyborg was the right choice. Hays had told him once, before he even became King, that the biggest obstacle humans have ever faced is mortality, and that banning cyborgism was the only way to make us face it. Cyborgism, he explained, was not a solution, but a pacifier. All the same, he added that if he were ever on the brink of death, that he’d take all the metal he could get, legally or otherwise. He had chuckled heartily at his own irony, and Kato had smiled along. But he never forgot those words, “a pacifier.” He recalled them in a public speech the day he signed the bill. Now he wondered if it was a pacifier for the patient, or their loved ones who simply won’t let go. Tomorrow, he’d have to publicly retract those words. Tomorrow.

© Shyla Fairfax-Owen

Most Wanted

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Dystopia, Fantasy, Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

I look up. Everything around me is sand. For miles, and miles – just sand. It’s in my eyes, between my breasts, under my fingernails. Hell, it’s even in my lungs. I cough, but I’m so hoarse it hardly sounds like myself. And then there’s the ringing. A piercing, relentless, ringing that somehow I know is coming from inside of my own head.

My wrist is broken. That much is clear. My head has been rattled. My muscles twitch and ache where they shouldn’t. But none of that compares to the damage done to the ship. Metal bits and chunks are laid out upon the sand, a perfect picture of disaster. And that’s when I know for sure, I’m never going home.

The sun is still high, which tells me I have plenty of hours to succumb to dehydration before I even see a desert’s moon. That saddens me. I’ve always wanted to see the moon from the other side. Earth. I almost chuckle. This is not at all how I imagined my grand arrival.

Somehow I find the energy to scrounge for food and water in the heaps of broken ship. I find one water bottle, and it’s only half full. Luckily, I’ve always been a glass half-full woman, so I smile and let a few drips wash over my parched tongue. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a bag of peanuts, and things really start to look up. Because the peanuts aren’t mine.

The dunes are tough to get over. With each step I sink, and have to struggle forward. I engage every muscle, every bone (that isn’t broken), and every corner of my mind. Willpower – there’s nothing like it.

Finally I see a shadow in the distance. I think it’s the shape of a person. The sun is almost set now; it’s cold and I’ve almost finished the water. The peanuts are long gone. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to assure me I’m not hallucinating when the figure starts towards me.

It’s a woman. She’s tall and sturdy, wielding a crossbow. A huntress of the Desert Peoples. She won’t care that I’m interstellar. Desert Peoples are poor, desperate – they have a million other things to worry about besides intergalactic relations. Still, I hold up my index finger to indicate that I come in peace. I hold up a piece of scrap from my ship and point to the sky, then my broken bone. She nods and offers me a hand.

Gaza, as she calls herself, takes me to her home. She is proud of it even though it is small, dark, and sticky. Its walls are decorated with her trophies – the heads of creatures small and large. It catches me off guard. These are species of which I’ve only seen images. They captured their stillness, but this – this is too still. I look away, embarrassed by my weakness. To think, I used to consider myself tough.

“Thora,” Gaza says pointing to me. She is introducing me to her father, an elderly man who creaks when he moves. He nods, but his gaze seems to pass right through me. He’s blind, I realize.

Over the next few weeks I learn to help around the house. Mostly, I load parcels of meat, babying my wrapped wrist bone. I’m not sure what animal it is, and I don’t ask. Gaza and her clan are preparing for a great travel to the city where they trade goods. I will be going with her, she tells me. It will make me useful, she adds.

I fancy the idea of being a useful member of a community and I’m tickled. Back home, I was just a petty thief, in and out of jails. No sense of loyalty, no sense of belonging. I was hardly a blip on anyones newsfeed. Until the hack. Nothing like a good b and e to the Authority’s mainframe to get some attention. That’s all I was looking for, attention. But I found something much bigger. Plans of an intergalactic war. I’m not sure at what moment I decided to become the hero of this story, to come to Earth and warn the people – I guess I just needed a win. Unfortunately, the Authority put me on a most wanted murderers list before my ship had gained enough speed for its spectacular crash landing. My name was all over the newsfeeds then. Yes, it was.

“This way,” Gaza instructs as she rips down a wanted poster of me. We’ve just arrived at the trading post. It’s the first time I’m sure she knows who I am, but neither one of us says a word about it. I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s good to know she’s on my side. I plan to tell some of the traders about the war plans. They’ll be from all over, and I’m sure to find someone who speaks more English than Gaza; maybe even some Lunar.

Inside the post, Gaza goes on with a shorter woman who is plump and (from the looks of it) bored. After Gaza begins raising her voice, a man comes out. They go back and forth for a while in a language I can’t understand and I turn my back on the ordeal. I’m fondling some sparkly trinkets that I don’t recognize when the hand grabs me. I turn to face the large man as he cuffs me. I want to scream but I’m in shock, because I don’t know what’s going on, but from the look on Gaza’s face, I’ve been sold out.

© Shyla Fairfax-Owen

The Vision

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Dystopia, Fantasy, Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

You know that expression women like to throw about unwittingly? “Not if you were the last man on Earth”- we say. But can it ever really be true? What if someone really was the last man on Earth. Could you hate him? Could you love him? Are we all heterosexist enough to think this is a fair question? See? It’s complicated.

The thing about Yan is, he is the last man on Earth. Well, as far as I can tell anyway. You see, I have a gift. You’ve heard of omens and signs. Most of us think that’s just people assigning meaning to arbitrary things to give them purpose, and to make the world seem more logical, more rational. But they’re real. And I’m one of the few people in the world who can read them. It’s almost like a vision. I see a crow or the number 13, and I’m hit with a sudden knowledge that I can’t ignore. And last week, I saw Yan.

I guess I should start from the beginning. Last year, an illness – no, a plague – attacked us. It spread like wildfire, or more accurately, like biological warfare. It was meant to wipe out the world’s entire population, and it nearly did. But there was one unexpected quirk. The Y chromosome was far more susceptible to it. Females were by no means safe, but we weren’t exactly doomed. Not like the males. Month after month passed us by, and none of the survivors had been able to find any men. I don’t think anyone was really looking. Mostly, we were concerned with figuring out what happened, and why.

But then I had a vision. I saw him. Alive, and well. In hiding, of course. We like to believe that people are basically good, and yet we know enough to hide when there’s something… special… about us. And there is something beyond special about Yan.

—

“Ophelia?”

I roll my eyes and shudder. “I know,” I mutter, “my parents were, uh, romantics – I guess.”

“I like it.”

He smiles and my heart flutters a little. I hate that, but I don’t seem to have any control over it at the moment. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen a man. I guess I’m a bit of a romantic, too. I honestly can’t tell if he’s attractive, but I know it could be a lot worse. He’s even about my age.

“And how did you find me again?” He removes his hood, finally letting his guard down a little, and pats the empty spot next to him on the park bench.

“Well, I know it sounds kind of nuts, but it was kind of like a vision. I have them sometimes.”

Yan nods suspiciously, but seems overall willing to accept my answer. I guess when 75% of the world crashes and burns before your eyes, it ups your threshold for believability.

“I know of a facility. You’ll be safe there, I promise.”

He snorts a little. Maybe he’s not as trusting as I’d hoped.

“So they can do a bunch of tests on me? Steal my sperm?” He spits the word sperm and I know it’s personal, so I don’t ask.

“Well, some tests, definitely. But nothing to be afraid of. We’re not trying to re-populate. Cloning facilities are working on that.”

“So what’s your facility working on?”

I think on it for a moment and realize we don’t really know. “We just wanna figure this thing out.”

“That’s promising.”

He turns away from me. I can see his jaw clenching and I know he’s fighting back tears. I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t really thought about how emotional this must all be for him. He’s scruffy, dirty, a little underweight. I’ve lost fifteen pounds since all of this, and I’m not even hiding.

“Are you hungry?” I ask, snuggling into him a little more. I do it to make me seem inviting; friendly, but I do enjoy the sensation of his leg against mine. Not that it matters. I learn pretty quickly that he has no intention of reciprocating my desires.

Six days and four meals later and I’ve got him on a train. He insists on wearing a hood and a scarf to cover most of his face, even though spring is coming on fast and hard. I can still tell he’s a man, and I think most people would if they bothered to look at him. But no one really does. Self-absorbency, no plague can kill that.

—

“What’s that?” Yan asks as Dr. Ving brings the machine towards his face. He’s in a panic, and all the unfamiliar tools aren’t helping.

“It’s just going to scan your eyes.”

“My eyes are fine.”

“Well, I guess we’ll know in a minute.” She holds the device up to his eyes and waits for a DING before jotting down the results.

“So?” Yan asks, his voice shaking.

“Your eyes are fine.”

Dr. Ving is losing patience with him, but I’m not. The twitchier he gets, the cuter I find him. I almost want to tell him about the secret alliance we’ve made with a neighbouring cloning facility. Almost. But not quite. In my latest vision, there was a little Yan, and he was happy. I know better than to mess with a vision.

© Shyla Fairfax-Owen

 

 

 

67 Days

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Fantasy, Horror, Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

April 2

“This is agent 445 to command. Agent 445 to command.”

“Static.”

“Ship is under siege. I repeat! Ship is under siege! Commander? Come in.”

“Static.”

May 4

“Agent 445 to command, reporting a crash landing. Agents 177 and 559 down. There’s… something… here. Soldiers – they helped me escape. They… they look just like us.”

May 17

“Soldiers from the planet they call Lux have taken me to water. I do not know my coordinates. I am told there are enemies everywhere. I do not know who to trust.”

June 8 

“…Hel-….. NO…  go of me… wha- wha-… ahhhh! Don’t look! Don’t look at it!… -ay back!…

Static.”

© Shyla Fairfax-Owen

 

The End

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Horror, Poems, Sci Fi, Shyla's Stories, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It was unexpectedly beautiful, the end of the world.

The fires, blazing west to east. The waters flooding north to south. The earths opening up, devouring our very being. The winds scooping up whatever was left.

I watched it all in awe, and not once did I consider stopping it. There’s nothing quite like the rush of devastation. My only loss was its completion.

The Telluric Goodbye

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Fantasy, Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

I looked up at Fern, her eyes skimming over the top of my head as her thoughts travelled far away from our now. She was a Telluric; part of the last scoop during the salvage. She had grown up among Astrals and sometimes it was easy to forget that she was from Earth – a different breed altogether – but in these distant moments, it was apparent. In these moments, the ones in which she could be both present and not, I was utterly bewildered by her difference. Part of me knew I only loved her because my curiosity overpowered me. But most of me didn’t care why I loved her, just that I did.

She shivered lightly. Her hair growth was selective, red, sprouting mainly from her head and above her eyes. Some growth occurred under her arms (of which she only had two) and a thin layer covered the rest of her. It gave her a smooth texture that I could only feel in the palms of my four hands. It meant she was often cold, but the adaptation meant it was tolerable. Some of the Astrals had advocated for more salvages overtime when we’d discovered there had still been some scattered survivors on Earth, but they had spent too much time in their natural habitat. They’d freeze to death, we were told.

I think it bothered Fern sometimes, to know there were others stranded down there. She had volunteered for a number of anatomy studies hoping to find a viable solution; some way that Telluric genes could be manipulated once matured. None of it was very promising; but she kept going back to the labs, hoping for different results. That was the definition of insanity. She hated when I’d tell her that, so eventually I stopped, and just let her go on being insane.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she whispered a hint of a smile in her tone.

I shied away, fixing my eyes anywhere else. She sunk her shoulders down and nestled herself under one of my arms so that her head was resting on my chest. She nuzzled her nose into me, burying her face in my fur. I wrapped two more arms around her, offering warmth, and leaned back on my fourth. We gazed out at the vastness before us. It was nice.

The next day when she stepped into the lab with that hopeful grin of hers, I returned it. I had decided to stay in the waiting room this time, even when she insisted I go home. For no particular reason, I wanted to be there with her.

“She’s prone to her Telluric instincts. She has no memories of Earth, but her genetic makeup seems to. It’s fascinating, really.”

I flashed cold eyes at the doctor keeping me company, afraid he was preparing me for news I wouldn’t want to hear. The apologetic eyes he returned told me it was true.

“You’re sending them back?” I asked. The scent of my fear wafted over us.

“Edoc, you knew this was always the plan.”

I winced, as if the truth had a vulgarity to it.

“I didn’t think it would be her.”

“Of course you did.”

“When will you tell her?”

“Edoc, she volunteered; like she always does. She asked me to tell you.”

“Why?” I looked towards the closed off room that she lie behind, being poked and prodded.

“Tellurics hate delivering sad news. I suppose she figured this would be easier.”

“But I won’t be able to share my sadness with her.” My fur rose, searching for the being connected to its emotions.

“I suppose she prefers it that way.”

“No. She likes it when I share.”

“She wants to see Earth,” the doctor continued, ignoring my reaching fur. “You can’t blame her; it’s a deep-seeded instinct. She tried to have us remove it but we couldn’t.”

My fur pulled me up and dragged me to the door, although I did little to fight it. Inside, a shocking scene unfolded before me.

There she was, teary-eyed and quivering lips. Her body vibrating with a combination of nerves and excitement as they bolted her into the launch pod. She caught my eyes, and quickly shut her own. Her long stringy head hairs had been braided behind her to keep them in place when the pod shot her away from me.

I looked at her through the glass, and suddenly, that difference of hers was altogether distasteful. An Astral would never abandon its partner, without so much as a simple sharing. An Astral would never lie about its intentions, or keep secrets. An Astral would never leave home to live among ruins and strangers.

And then it was there, loud and clear – this wasn’t her home. That’s what she had been trying to tell me in all of those present yet not moments. This wasn’t her home.

©Shyla Fairfax-Owen

Remember

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Fantasy, Sci Fi, Shyla's StoriesLeave a comment

Zenith squeezed her eyelids together, shutting out the night, and tried to remember what it was like. Home – as arbitrary a word as any other, and yet it carried with it a heavy weight that could not be denied.

“I don’t think I can see it,” she admitted in defeat. They’d been at it for hours with no improvement.

“Sure you can. Breathe from your centre, and connect to the memory. It’s there, Zenith. You know it it.” Dr. Lux’s urging was as gentle as she could manage in her frustration.

Zenith sighed, and tried to release herself of the sensation that she was only a test subject.

Since humankind migrated to this planet some 400 years ago, Optical Memory had been their most cherished sense. It was the ability to see this new world through Earthy eyes; historical perception – a collective memory passed down from generation to generation so that the legacy of their diaspora would always be a part of them. But now, that was all changing.

With each passing generation it seemed Earth fell further away as Zenith’s people thrived, adapting to the host environment to a point of (accidental) pure assimilation. Soon enough, the optical memories began to fade as trees melted and oceans evaporated to reveal rocks – a plethora of colours and shapes humankind had once not even known. This new world was becoming the familiar, the recollection of Earth for comfort becoming less necessary. Less thought of. Zenith, the elders feared, might very well be the last to see it. That is, if she could any more.

It was a few days before she told anyone that she had seen her last cloud. Clouds, she was realizing, was just another false perception; a deception of her genetically human eyes. Slowly but surely, her world was changing before her until she didn’t even recognize it any longer. Strangely though, something about the change felt right. Losing the memories felt less like loss to her than to the elders, who had lost them long ago. Zenith’s inability to hold on for them, it seemed, marked Earth’s final death. She and the few others had been undergoing tests and observation ever since. It was an arduous advent, and she just wanted it to be over.

“I just see the rocks. I’m sorry.” Zenith averted her eyes, hating having to let down not only Dr. Lux, but her entire race.

Dr. Lux forced a smile and shrugged; “Get some sleep. Come back fresh tomorrow.”

—

That night Zenith couldn’t get a wink of sleep. Something about the way she had left things stuck with her like a deep itch she couldn’t quite reach. “I just see the rocks.” Why had she said it like that? The rocks were the most beautiful, welcoming, visions Zenith had ever known. The rocks were Home.

—

“Feeling better today, Zenith?”

“No.” Zenith looked at Dr. Lux, determined to assert herself. “Why are we doing this?” she asked firmly.

Dr. Lux looked stunned, her face hardened, then softened again.

“You know why we’re doing this Zenith,” she said in that lulling tone of hers. “You and your peers are the guardians of humanity’s collective memory. It’s so important that we remember.”

“Why?” Zenith asked without skipping a beat, or breaking her glare.

Dr. Lux rose from her chair and swept across the room to the window facing Zenith. She stared out of it for a long, silent, time. Without looking back, she finally spoke. “Because if we don’t remember our mistakes, we’re inclined to make them again. It’s a genetic fault that can only be controlled, not fixed. We can’t let ourselves destroy another great planet. We have to know that Earth was once strong and beautiful, and ours. We have to remember. We just do.”

Zenith shrunk. It’s not that the response was entirely satisfying, but rather that it couldn’t be argued. The history of humanity on Earth had been irreparably stained. It was a part of them, of her. No matter how badly Zenith wanted to move forward, Earth was her ancestry – how could justify not looking back?

“I know it’s over, Zenith.” Dr. Lux broke Zenith from her contemplation. “You can’t see it because you can’t feel it. The whole premise of Optical Memory is that it’s collective and hereditary. Things like that only exist as long as the genetics deem them necessary. We’ve all moved on, against our wills, I suppose.”

Zenith thought Dr. Lux might be whimpering, but she still hadn’t turned to face her.

“Go home, Zenith. We’re done.”

The statement was loaded, and stung. Zenith obliged, lugging her body so heavy with confusion, out the door.

©Shyla Fairfax-Owen

Read more from this universe in Perception

Kindred (Octavia Butler): Book Review

On By Shyla Fairfax-OwenIn Reviews and Essays1 Comment

Science Fiction; Historical Fiction; African American Literature ♠♠♠♠♠

Author: Octavia Butler

This book was published in 1979, the first science fiction novel to be published by a black woman. It holds a rating of 4.14 on Goodreads.

Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.

A perfect book – Kindred is a balanced blend of science fiction and historical fiction, providing an original and thoughtful framework through which to consider black American history.

I’ve read slave narratives, and seen period films dealing with slavery. They are gut-wrenching, difficult, pieces to get through. They elicit emotional and visceral reactions, exposing a dark reality that many of us are relieved is left in the past when the book ends or the credits roll. But how can we connect with these characters who are living in a completely different world than we are today? We can’t, not entirely. And it’s a problem that Butler solves with one simple plot device: time travel.

Dana and Kevin are characters we can relate to. She is a modern black woman and he a modern white man. Perhaps reading this book in the 1980s would have made their interracial relationship stand out more, but in returning to the book in 2016, it’s hardly jarring. In fact, it makes them seem even more modern; even easier to relate to. So when Dana finds herself to have inexplicably travelled across space and time from her California living room to the antebellum south, she is a perfect point of reference for the reader. The reader is forced to consider, along with Dana, what aspects of modern life one can has taken for granted, and how one would adjust to life as a slave in 1815.

More to Offer than Violence

The immediate concern for Dana, of course, is safety. What we know of slavery is its brutal and dehumanizing nature. Reading slave narratives often means having to read first hand accounts of violences and atrocities many of us prefer to believe no person can be capable of committing. But there it is, written outright, stirring up the most intense emotions. Kindred deals with this in moments, but consciously focuses more on Dana’s adjustments to her new role and how she reasons herself into submission when she has to. The story is more about the struggle of accepting certain terrible things, and learning to appreciate what remains in 1976 (or today). So when the violence happens, it is emotionally painful to read, but it doesn’t happen on every page, which seems like a wise decision on the author’s part. This way it doesn’t lose any of the more squeamish or ignorant readers, because the book has so much more to offer than the stark reality of violence. It’s not just a story of strength and survival of the body, but of the mind.

Race, Romance, and Desire

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Dana and Kevin have already chosen each other despite the objections from friends and families who have not been able to understand why a black woman and a white man would fall in love. But they have. And if they think that’s tough in the 1970s, that they might make it through the treacheries of the antebellum south seems damn near impossible. When Kevin ends up on the plantation with Dana, she instantly fears what may become of him; how the ideology of the times may taint him. She never outwardly thinks he’ll become a bigot, or leave her – but her fears lie just below the surface. Meanwhile, Kevin simply can’t adjust. The master/slave role they have to take on to stay together is so unnatural to him that he can’t quite feel it, or play it. It’s both frustrating and beautiful to watch him, a white man, struggle to fully understand what he is witnessing. He remains an observer on the outside, simply unable to blend. But when he gets trapped in that time and place, stranded when Dana unexpectedly time travels home without him, he’ll have to learn to. Back home, Dana is determined to find her way back to him – whoever, or whatever, he may be by then.

Then there is Rufus – the white boy who keeps inadvertently calling to Dana, ripping her from the comforts of 1976 to his father’s plantation. He finds himself in love with a free black girl, Alice, and she and Rufus will someday become Dana’s great great grandparents. When Dana first meets Rufus and makes this connection, he is still just a young boy who can’t seem to stay out of life-threatening trouble. Each time she comes to him she must save his life, secretly insuring their family line. But each time she comes to him he is a little older, a little meaner, and a little more a plantation owner’s son. Soon, it becomes clear that his love for Alice, although “true”, is one of obsession and possessiveness. Dana watches it unfold, knowing it’s how it must be if her great grandmother will ever be born.

Final Thoughts

This book is a triumph in both Sci-fi and Black Lit. It’s touching, emotional, powerful; and yet it never pushes itself over the edge that is so readily available in slave narratives. I give it 5 spades ♠♠♠♠♠*.

*My rating is based on a five-spade system. The rating is decided based upon how well/uniquely the book: 1) develops story and plot; 2) develops characters; 3) accomplishes or deconstructs the conceits of its genre; 4) raises thought-provoking issues; 5) discusses important issues. This system has been developed according to my own definition of what makes a book "good." It is therefore subjective.