Mx. RileyJan 30, 2025

I am so, so glad I finally decided to prioritize reading sci-fi and speculative fiction written by people who aren't white men.

As much as I've enjoyed the work of Philip K Dick, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson -- formative reading for me -- I don't remember any of them equipping me with as much humanity as the work of NK Jemisin or Mary Robinette Kowal.

Expanding one's horizons, who knew 😂🤦🏻

Show threadElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂

@robin One of my favorite writers is the late Octavia Butler - absolutely brilliant. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are devastatingly prescient (more so than Orwell or Huxley’s famous books).

I’m glad I read them years ago because I would not have had the stomach to read them today.

FYI: https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/octavia-butlers-prescient-vision-of-a-zealot-elected-to-make-america-great-again

Octavia Butler’s Prescient Vision of a Zealot Elected to “Make America Great Again”

Abby Aguirre writes about Octavia Butler’s “Parable” science-fiction books that predicted Donald Trump.

The New Yorker
Jan 30, 2025 at 5:48amWeb
Show threadSadieJan 30, 2025
@elena @robin Ditto on Parable of the Sower. As if she had a crystal ball into 2025...
Show threadEricka SimoneJan 30, 2025

@elena @robin she also predicted the #EatonFire down to an exact date that was only 3 weeks off… February 1st, 2025. Her resting place is safe but it is also how she set her living situation: “ in a walled garden community to protect them from fire.”

Her grave, in a walled cemetery, was lightly singe.

She is a PROPHET.

Show threadElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Jan 31, 2025
@ErickaSimone Oh Ericka! This realization sent chills down my spine. Wow! A prophet indeed (who sadly left us too soon)
Show threadMr. CompletelyJan 30, 2025
@elena @robin sadly, she has turned out to be the most accurate of all the SF writers, and she accomplished that by applying the lessons of history to what she saw in America, and simply not shying away from the results
Show threadWaka/JoewakaJan 30, 2025
@mrcompletely @elena @robin One of my kids is reading another of her books. I need to start reading her books soon.
Show threadMr. CompletelyJan 30, 2025

@JoeAce967 @elena @robin they are not easy to read and any recommendation of them should come cocooned in trigger warnings, but that's just the truth in them unfortunately.

They are all time top tier SF and for our current moment perhaps the most relevant books of all, inside the genre or not.

Show threadElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Jan 31, 2025
@mrcompletely absolutely! I often argue she was more prescient than Orwell or Huxley. Granted she was born after them, but the things she predicted are extraordinary
Show threadCourt Cantrell won't conformJan 30, 2025

@elena @robin I will never stop feeling devastated that she never got to finish the third book.

She was so prescient about where we are now, maybe she might have been just as prescient about how we get out of it.

Show threadElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Jan 31, 2025
@courtcan @robin same! I often think about her third book and what it could have been