The Merry-Go-Round To Hell

“We’re all doing VR, every time we look at a screen. We have been for decades now. We just do it. We didn’t need the goggles, the gloves. It just happened. VR was an even more specific way we had of telling us where we were going. Without scaring us too much, right? The locative, though, lots of us are already doing it. But you can’t just do the locative with your nervous system. One day, you will. We’ll have internalized the interface. It’ll have evolved to the point where we forget about it. Then you’ll just walk down the street…” He spread his arms, and grinned at her.” ― William Gibson, Spook Country

I recently completed the novel Spook Country by renowned speculative fiction writer William Gibson. Set against the backdrop of the absurd mania of post 9/11 America the novel follows three protagonists: Hollis Henry, Tito, and Milgrim, as their individual paths collide and separate, in an elaborate scheme involving various shadowy individuals.

Reading the book was strange to say the least; it felt like some kind of fever-dream documentary. Part prophetic, part reflection of a bygone era, not so bygone, reading it in the year 2025 was somewhat of a brutal roundhouse kick to the liver in the “history repeats itself” sort of fashion. I’ve been mulling over the vicious repetition of history a lot of late, and I suppose in some ways the book didn’t help in stopping that particular brain itch. It possibly just exacerbated it, and turned it from brain rash to full on boils.

I was around the age of 13 when 9/11 happened and then the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars on Terror. War on Terror here meaning, invade any Middle Eastern country I want, because I can, because I’m America, so fuck you! It was strange then, what with Americans cheering for Iraqi and Afghani blood with an enthusiasm which my teen mind couldn’t really fathom. It was also my first live action war on TV. Exhilarating stuff. Of course the Gulf War had happened as I later learned but I was a toddler then, and probably missed all the exciting mishaps and propaganda for that one. The War on Terror however engrained in my mind, as I watched America flounder about WMDs and Saddam, and later read extensively about how much of a disaster it would become. Describing it in detail is beyond the scope of this essay, so I’ll just leave a nice little link to Cost of War, who’ve researched it extensively, and are a good place to start. I’ll leave a little description here though:

“Costs of War research examines the human toll of U.S. military operations and spending, for U.S. service members, veterans, military contractors, and allies; and for civilians killed and displaced.

An estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. The number of people wounded or ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who died “indirectly,” as a result of wars’ destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.”

Moving along, back in good old 2001 we had the dis/advantage of 24 hour news cycle, that ancient nightmare that was to become 24 hour internet access, 24 hour bombardment of endlessly bad shit and live streamed genocide on your phone. I had no idea of what was to come: oh, sweet summer child. After Spook Country, I can’t stop wondering if Gibson knew, or at least had some vague idea of what was to come. He did write the Sprawl Trilogy after all, which seemed to predict the current internet, yet in a seemingly way more fun abstract art style compared to the sterile text and influencer perfect pictures and videos content unpleasantness we’ve all become accustomed to.

As a Global Souther (I’m South African) living under American Hegemony has been particularly garish, inhumane, and barbaric since they dropped that atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Recently I’ve been particularly happy American took little interest in South Africa, other than labeling our Apartheid resistance fighters as, take a guess, terrorists. There have been some shocking sights to behold in countries they took great interest in. The West has been never againing their way through atrocity after atrocity with no end in sight. It’s almost a joke at this stage to think atrocities can be avoided with these people in charge.

So, returning to my brain boils, what has changed since the early 2000s? Does any of this feel different? I’ve been listening to the Blowback Podcast recently as well, you know, just to increase the amount of pus in those brain boils. It relays American Foreign Policy disasters from North Korea, to Cambodia, to my teenage awakening to America’s barbarism in Iraq and Afghanistan. And well, to be honest, it feels like same shit, different day, but now I have a smart phone. While the shadowy world and figures of Gibson’s Spook Country still exist, going about all their heinous activities, we know, or at least those of us willing to look hard enough, know all to much about it. The wizard of Oz isn’t much of a wizard anymore. Honestly I cant tell if it’s the phone, or just being older and better read, but all the propaganda has become increasingly cartoonish. Oh, we had to destroy their entire health infrastructure because Hamas was hiding in tunnels under the hospitals. Right, of course, makes sense. As Bill Burr joked, that’s like your neighbour punches you, then holds up a baby to his face, so you have no other option but to punch him back through the baby. How is this still happening?

How is this all still happening? Being reminded of the 9/11 script, the non-stop lies, the non-stop dehumanizing of Arabs, the Islamophobia, the Iran is seeking nuclear power, sorry, I mean, Iraq is creating WMDs to kill all of America’s friends narratives. Of course, with spurious evidence, I mean, that’s how you justify genocides, sorry I meant Wars on Terror. Watching the state of Israel, America once again, and all the European cronies do this all too familiar jig. This post Oct 7th climate has been enough to make one feel like they’re losing their mind. Literally. Why am I watching this again? I’m so sure I’ve seen this film, and I didn’t enjoy it the first time, not even as a naïve teen.

I’m being shoved right back into that 13 year olds shoes, watching Iraq and Afghanistan get blown to pieces on that 24 hour news cycle parents liked back then, but it feels astronomically worse. Is it the smart phone, or the vicious repetition? Watching children starve to death daily all day. Not just when mommy and daddy put on the news for a bit of an update, but all the time. I can see it all the time. ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

It was all unfolding back then, and there was resistance in the form of protests and so forth. But it was slower. Way slower. FuckIsreal666 on twitter wasn’t debunking American lies mere minutes after the lie was told. We had standards back then. You had to wait a bit before someone proved the politician or IDF spokesperson was bullshitting. The lies have become so monotonous some it’s exhausting to even look at your phone, aka your VR headset where politicians and elites regale you with all kinds of fables a quick google search (fuck Google too by the way, but I digress) can debunk in less than 5 minutes. Researchers come in faster now too, since you can follow them directly on Social Shitty Media. You see it’s debunked by some professor with way too many credentials, then 10 seconds later another lie, from some dickhead that charmed their way into a top political position appears on you feed. Oh, by the way, this is probably why you shouldn’t doomscroll, or maybe you should, who the fuck knows? Knowledge is power allegedly. And on and on we go on this merry go round to hell.

Gibson’s Spook Country almost made me nostalgic for the days of wondering around with a laptop, looking for someone who hadn’t passworded their Wi-Fi, cell phones that simply texted and did phone calls, having to buy a newspaper or turn on the TV to see the news. But I suppose it also made me nauseous, understanding these were the early beginnings of the modern malaise. The novel covers locative art: art bound by a specific geographic position, requiring a VR headset to be visible. Naturally the concept bleeds into GPS coordinates and surveillance, and the entire planet becoming a grid, for our favorite tech bros to exploit for their authoritarian means.

We’d probably drop the headset and just look through our phone camera now for such an experience, at least until we get those smart phone implants or smart glasses. The surveillance capitalists are probably salivating over getting direct data from our human sensory systems so they can sell that data and run it through an algorithm to suggest the next best sight to see to pump up our depleting dopamine hits.

In Spook Country, Hubertus Bigend is one ultra rich, seemingly omnipresent shadow figure affecting Hollis Henry’s need to make money as an ex-musician, turned journalist. He appears just at the right time of her financial desperation. Hollis’ discomfort with Bigend seemingly being omnipresent, obnoxiously so, has become our everyday existence. Bigend feels very much like a early 2000s figure. Limited by the technologies that existed then, that have advanced into something greater, or more perverse.

Bigend requires certain tech to keep track of Hollis. Tech our current tech giants would probably scoff at. Clunky pieces of equipment to track location; we long ago sold our location, and data, and various other things to omnipresent freaks who wouldn’t even bother to give us a job opportunity, as they don’t need us, just our attention and information. Bigend came across archaic in that weird Gibson way, where it was known, but certain developments were needed to flesh out how darkly strange it would become. Indeed, reading Spook Country in the year 2025 was very illuminating. We’re all doing VR now, every time we look at a screen. Everyday we’re sifting through various realities on our devices wondering what’s real.

Is this Burn After Reading?

This December as things slow down a bit for me, I can’t help but feel like I’m in a Coen Brothers film. Most specifically I feel like I’m an extra in Burn After Reading. The end scene below (SPOILER!) feels particularly apt.

“What do we learn Palmer?”

“I don’t know sir.”

“I don’t fucking know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.”

“Yes sir.”

“Fucked if I know what we did.”

“Yes sir, it’s uh, hard to say.”

Is this sounding painfully familiar in the year of our lord, December 2021? One recurring morbid thought I keep having as I attempt to rest, or whatever this weird semi-peaceful malaise I find myself in is, is that we’ve learned nothing. Niks, absolutely fokol. In an extremely fucked and unpleasant way we had this great chance, this immense opportunity. We actually paused capitalism guys. I mean well kind of, but all the lockdowns, all that time to think, people not going into the office, those brief moments some of us had to stop running like a hamster. We managed to tweak the formula a bit and shattered the delusion that is modern day capitalism which we’ll just call post-capitalism.

We all suffered for it, since most rich and powerful people were completely unwilling to go all in, and maybe do something as “crazy” as just pay people to stay at home, but the fact still remains that we got a glimpse behind the curtain that has become our daily lives. And then guess what we did? We threw it all away. Just like that, boom!

The powers that be scrambled back to the “normalcy”. Our reward is the same post-capitalism mess we were in, now with extra steps and stress. It’s really hurting my brain. Jumping through hoops to keep this sinking ship afloat. Going in and out of lockdowns like stuck records to keep things just barely afloat. Forcing people into the office until there’s another wave or variant scare, then sending them back home. Then rinse repeat. Ad nauseam.

We’re in this weird push and pull limbo, and in our lack of decisive action, it somewhat feels like we might have actually made things worse for ourselves. Now we have to deal with the general madness of post-capitalism plus Covid. So it’s like, the Amazon is on fire, there’s doom floods all over the place, you have to keep pushing forward pretending none of its happening, but hey also you’re loosing friends and family to Covid while some anti-vaxxer is yelling at you for how stupid you are for getting vaccinated. Super fun stuff.

I mean, I largely ignored a lot of the travel ban madness for sanity sake, but it’s very telling. Despite Covid clearly showing us how weak we are divided, powerful countries are still clinging to all the old structures. Like let’s whip out the colonialist handbook to deal with this. It’s totally going to work right? If we hoard all the vaccines and travel ban the Global South, everything is going work out great right? We won’t get variant after variant after variant because we’ve made it impossible to reach any kind of collective global vaccine goal. Nope nope. Let’s fuck them on IP while we make them manufacture our excess. This approach has never led to rampant inequality, climate collapse, and constant refugee crisis that keep coming back to bite us in the ass. No not at all.

And all the while we have the billionaires. Those goddamn billionaires mocking our abject misery at every chance they get. While we all collectively lament our trauma, they’re dick fighting over who can colonize space first. And to what end? Apparently to save us since we shat the bed with the planet.

Then there’s our friend Elon Musk. Again, while the rest of us are in and out of hospitals, blowing the last of our savings, barely keeping it together, he’s taken to trolling on Twitter any person who might suggest, that maybe, just maybe maybe maybe fucking MAYBE, there could be a better use of his billions. Somehow the collective suffering of the species has done little to trigger even an ounce of sympathy in the man, who mocked Covid protocols because, “everybody dies“. I mean seriously who the fuck is this guy, Ivan Drago? While Musk dodges tax like a toddler dodges green beans, Marky Mark aka The Zucks announces the Metaverse. Amazing. We can now all escape the misery of our existence matrix-style by trading all our freedoms and information to Zucks Technocracy. This is all going so well I’m in awe.

So, what the fuck did we learn? We definitely didn’t learn not to do it again. I think we learned that, despite not knowing what the fuck we did, we should do it again, and do it even worse this time, as we’ve seemingly realized we can make things worse, and we absolutely must. We’re all the league of morons.

Shoreline of Infinity 18 Opinion

I was recently published in Shoreline of Infinity 18. I finally got around to reading the stories and essays and they’re amazing! We’re all running around selling diversity these days, and this anthology really nails it. I’m largely involved in the African Speculative Fiction scene, but issue 18 of Shoreline was a BAME (black and minority ethnic) issue. This allowed me to branch my reading out further as I’ve been dying to get into more Asian Speculative Fiction.

We have stories from writers of Malaysian, Jamaican, Indian, Sri Lankan, and Nigerian descent. I enjoyed all the short stories, though I have two picks.

Odette by Zen Cho: A lovely horror short with the ever ominous presence of Uncle Andrew. Much to my horror preferences the supernatural elements link to trauma. It’s a familiar tale: ill-tempered Uncle feels sense of ownership over a young person since they’ve provided for them, and has razor sharp claws of passive-aggressive condescension, because why? Because I own you bitch! Excuse my french. This tale’s themes reminded me a lot about similar themes you see in African Speculative Fiction from the younger generation. Difficulties with family accepting you for who you are, accepting your career paths, accepting you’re not useless just because you’re over 25 five and you don’t have a decent job, family, house, oh and gasp, you’re not a good Christian. Woe is me, how can you not believe in the big colonial white guy living in the sky, you heathen! Speculative Fiction seems to be the way many of us are processing these domestic traumas, and this short does it specifically well.
Perumal and the God of Words by Prashanth Srivatsa: The power of language. This story revolves around language in a fantastical setting. Words of invocation are a common staple of fantasy narratives, but the usage here really stands out. I’m not too clued up on Tamil vs Hindi cleavages, but being South African I’m all to familiar with cleavages. And yes, I am talking about boobs and not the political kind. I’m also familiar with fears around language loss vs dominance. I’m not particularly sure how stories like this read to readers who don’t confront these kinds of issues daily, but this one certainly hit home for me. Mobs lining the street on a witch hunt for people who are ‘different’ to them. Being able to insulate themselves from the mob simply by changing language, as you probably look similar, and have a shared heritage that was butchered at some time or another. For me, that kind of setting was all to familiar, and held a strong emotional resonance. The fantasy element is deftly woven into the fracas in a way I’m sure many will appreciate.

Apart from the fiction, I recommend reading Stepping Through the Portal, the chat between guest editors Tendai Huchu and Raman Mundair. There are many fascinating tidbits on the diversity of Speculative Fiction and the difficulty in editing diversity. My experience has certainly been trying to retain South Africanisms in my short fiction, even when it reduces your chances of getting published in certain places. This conversation broadens these experiences, with every country having it’s own idiosyncrasies in culture and language that Western editors often interpret incorrectly as unrealistic or incorrect. Tendai even touches on his own possible mistakes in interpreting Asian stories, while editing Shoreline of Infinity 18. This humble attitude to editing is exactly what is needed when editing a diverse lineup.

There are some great essays as well. The Danger of Expectation in African Fiction was great, but there was not much in it that I didn’t know, or haven’t experienced. If however, you’re not particularly clued up on the recent history of African publishing, and the difficulties we face on the continent you might find it informative. If you’ve picked up the the undercurrent of rage and despondency towards non-fiction from young African fiction writers, this also might explain a lot to you. There are a lot of archaic confines many of us are actively raging against, like the still existing, embarrassing, and extremely condescending concept that Africans only read non-fiction, and can’t fathom fiction, let alone Speculative Fiction. This misconception is often propagated by Africans themselves no less. Ludicrous!

Finally, and another personal favorite as I’m rather ignorant to the scene, is The History of Japanese Science Fiction: from the 1930s to the 2010s. I’ve already made a long list of (and purchased, ha!) a number of works I uncovered through this essay. I’m a bit of an anime and manga fan, so learning a bit more about the rich history of Japanese prose Speculative Fiction was really exciting for me.

Admittedly I didn’t go through the reviews, as I like to cold read stuff, so I tend to stay away from reviews until after the fact. I also won’t comment on the poetry section as I’m in it, and that would be kind of weird. But for the short fiction and essays alone, Shoreline of Infinity 18 comes highly recommended.

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Today’s Episode of “Fuck These Platforms. Let’s Just Blog About Ourselves Bro!”

What’s been keeping me up at night? We unhealthily compartmentalize the world burning of course. So other than the end of humanity as we know it, what else?

The abundance of indie/small pub/small label music and writing there is. In this crazy information age you find yourself constantly drowning. There’s good drowning and there’s bad drowning. The abundance of amazing art drowning tends towards the good I rate.

I posted about African Speculative Fiction earlier in the year. Keeping that line of thought, I’ve purchased and am excited to read Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and The African Diaspora, Stephen Embleton’s Soul Searching , and I’ve been eying Mia Arderne’s Mermaid Fillet rather greedily. That sound’s gross somehow. The new issue of Omenana is coming in October, and the line up looks great! Also, I’m in it! Sorry, nobody has marketing budgets anymore, ok! We’re all our own promoters down here, in this grimdark rabbit hole.

On the music end, this weird thing’s been happening over the last couple of years where I’ve been interacting (on the internet haha, still don’t leave the house) with a lot of South African producers over the last couple of years. It’s a very surreal experience really. This all seemed to get rolling when I left Cape Town somehow. My cousin asked me the other day how I like rural life, and I told him it agrees with me. I told him I’ve somehow, very ironically, been networking more. The irony being, when I was right in the CBD and had access to everyone and everything, the madness of living in the CBD left me so mentally exhausted, I never had the energy to deal with people anyway. In person or online.

Somehow, now that my headspace is clearer I’m a bit more friendly. On the internet at least, can’t say much about phonecalls. I’ve been engaging with South Africa’s producer scene a bit more, and have been finding amazing talent, and amazing music. Seventhgaze, another South African talent, put together a really diverse list of South African music. This list isn’t just producers. It runs the gamut right up to our vibrant jazz scene.

Here’s the list: https://buymusic.club/list/seventhgaze-black-south-african-sounds

I can’t vouch for everything on here, as I haven’t listened to all of it. My intention is to go down the list, check out the stuff I don’t know, see what tickles my fancy. However, some projects or artists I’m familiar with.

I’m a huge Reza Khota fan, and his latest Liminal, is a phenomenal record. Also caught his quartet live when they were trying the songs out, so obviously it has sentimental value too. But it’s amazing. A journey. Find some time, sit down, and just listen to that album. The album art is also amazing!

I’m not too familiar with Asher Gamedze, but Buddy Wells (also on Liminal) plays sax on the album recommended on the list, and posted about it, so I’ll just assume it’s good. Blind buy good I’m assuming. (Update: I’m listening to it while writing this. It’s fucking good, what did I say!?)

Keenan Ahrends is on there. Not familiar with the project on the list, but I own his Narrative album, which is good, Nick William killing the keys like a mofo. So yeah, I’ll just assume that’s good too.

Tune Recreation Committee is one of Mandla Mlangeni’s bands, and you generally can’t go wrong there either. I have the previous album, Voices of Our Vision and its good. Good good!

The Brother Moves On is on there. Another local great! Amazing live shows! I’ve seen them play with Shabaka Hutchings whom they collaborate with frequently. So that album is a definite want as well.

I’m on there, lol. Next to some of my favorite people, which is sick! And weird…

That’s about all the stuff I know know, and honestly it’s mostly the jazz stuff. Specifically I’m saying I’ve delved into those catalogs, seen them live a bunch of times, that kind of thing. So this isn’t some kind of ranking system. I’m aware of a lot of the names on the list, and I can assure you there’s a lot of talent to go around, depending on your personal tastes. So if you’re not necessarily a jazz fan boy like myself, I recommend going down the list according to your own genre preferences. I’m sure you’ll find something you like!

The African Speculative Fiction StoryBundle curated by Ivor W. Hartmann

Hey everyone! Here’s a press release regarding the latest African Speculative Fiction bundle curated by Ivor Hartmann. Its pretty much a great list of Speculative Fiction by Africans at a steal. I own four of these works, and regularly read Omenana, so I highly recommend it, especially at the price. You can get the rest of the information below, from a press release provided by Ivor himself. Also, proceeds go to the hardworking folk at the African Speculative Fiction Society!

All Covers Large

The African Speculative Fiction StoryBundle curated by Ivor W. Hartmann

Welcome to the African Speculative Fiction Bundle!

This is the most comprehensive collection of African speculative fiction authors ever assembled. With the complete bundle containing nearly 100 authors and over 145 works it stands both as an excellent introduction to the rapidly evolving canon of African SF and a unique one-time collection of their works. From established stars you might know such as Nnedi Okorafor, Tade Thompson, and Sarah Lotz, to upcomers like Wole Talabi, Chinelo Onwualu, Nerine Dorman, Dilman Dila, and so many more.

The bundle starts in 2012 with the first AfroSF and goes right through to 2020 with the first special edition anthology from Omenana magazine, providing a healthy cross-section of African SF over eight years and in some cases the development of individual authors from their first publication onwards. And it is precisely for these reasons I have selected anthologies over novels in this inaugural bundle so as to better represent the full scale of African SF, though you will find too the bonus individual collections Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor and A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila.

The road to this bundle has been paved by the work of countless African writers, editors, publishers, and most importantly readers. For too long was the African experience, imagination, and insight, held captive and until relatively recently only glimpsed through the thick lens of other cultures and their inherent biases. In a big way this is what the new wave of African Speculative Fiction is about: telling our own stories, revealing our vibrant cultures from within, sharing our unique perspectives, and writing ourselves into futures that for so long seemed to spell our doom by virtue of our absence.

Indeed, our progress over just the last eight years has been phenomenal. We have not only won international awards like Arthur C. Clarke, World Fantasy, and Nebula, etc., but gone on to create our own like the Nommos now in its fourth year, the SSDA Award now in its eight year. African publishers such as Jalada Africa, Seven Hills Media, StoryTime, Short Story Day Africa, DADA books, Pan African Publishers, and Black Letter Media, all of whom contributed to make this bundle, have actively encouraged and published more speculative fiction than ever before, and we have only just begun.

In this vein, the charity giving chosen for this bundle is the African Speculative Fiction Society, to help with the tireless unpaid work of this collective NPO. The ASFS was formed in 2016 and primarily at present is focused on the Nommo awards. The awards are nominated and voted upon by ASFS members for excellence in four Speculative Fiction categories. The importance of these independent awards and the ASFS as a part of building a robust and diverse homegrown African SF canon cannot be overstated nor underestimated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I trust you will enjoy all the works in this bundle as much as we did in writing and publishing them for you. I hope you will be introduced to new authors to look out for, new ideas about the world from our perspectives, and see an inclusive future that proves we are so much stronger together than we can ever be apart, especially in these trying times and the times still ahead.

A massive big thanks goes out to all the authors, editors, and publishers, who made this possible, and especially Jason Chen of Storybundle for giving us this chance to present our works to you. – Ivor W. Hartmann

* * *

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.

AfroSFv1 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

Lagos_2060 edited by Ayodele Arigbabu

Terra Incognita by Nerine Dorman

Jalada 2: AfroFuture(s) by Jalada Africa

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more more books, for a total of ten! That’s a total of five StoryBundle exclusives!

A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila

Kabu-Kabu Stories by Nnedi Okorafor

AfroSFv2 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

AfroSFv3 edited by Ivor W. Hartmann

Omenana to Infinity by Omenana

Imagine Africa 500 edited by Billy Kahora

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books!

It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.

Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.

Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.
Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there’s nothing wrong with ditching DRM.
Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to the African Speculative Fiction Society!
Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you’ll get the bonus books!

StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.

For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, tweet us at @storybundle and like us on Facebook. For press inquiries, please email press@storybundle.com.

African Spec Fic I’ve Been Enjoying

I’ve been reading a whole bunch (SNAFU), though mostly African Speculative Fiction as it’s Nommo Nomination period. If you’re unsure what Speculative Fiction is, or want to know more about the Nommo awards for African Speculative Fiction, head here: http://www.africansfs.com/ .

For this post, I just want to jump right in. As of writing, the period is pretty much over, and we’ll be moving to the voting stage. You can get updates at the African Speculative Fiction Society’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/africansfs/.

A Spy In Time – Imraan Coovadia (Novel) : A great novel. It’s a mash of time travel and a spy thriller, but written with a ‘literary’ bent. It reads easily and has a number of interesting ideas within. Most interesting to me were time travel and race. Much of the novel grapples with how we might morally judge humanity in the past and present according to our current racial prejudices. It also has an interesting take on the multiverse, and the moral conundrums of racially a charged species such as ours learning how to freely move through the multiverse.

When We Dream We Are Our God – Wole Talabi (Short Story) : Ahhhh, where to begin? I can’t say much about this gem, but if you’re intrigued by AI and the possibility of human hive mind via technology, then this is for you! The story is quite utopian which I really enjoyed that on paper. Since we literally live in dystopian times, it was fresh narratively. In reality though, there’s not enough money on this planet that would make me to willingly hive mind with you crazy fucks! I’ve seen y’all on twitter, and no thanks! But seriously, read this short story.

The Border Keeper – Kerstin Hall (Novella) : I thoroughly enjoyed this novella. Two of my soft spots are non-traditional fantasy elements and excellent prose. This novella has both. If I were to identify a fantastical trope, it would be heaven vs hell, angels vs demons, but that is more the bare bones. The world building around it is still rather unique, so it doesn’t feel like a run of the mill angels vs demons type universe. The plot twists and turns quite a lot, perhaps too much at times, so I don’t want to give away too much about that. I don’t want to give away too much about the universe either, as the unique world building is part of the fun, so I’ll just leave the official blurb here.

“Vasethe, a man with a troubled past, comes to seek a favor from a woman who is not what she seems, and must enter the nine hundred and ninety-nine realms of Mkalis, the world of spirits, where gods and demons wage endless war.”

The Cure – Tariro Ndoro (Short Story) : So again, all bias here, but this a whimsical little urban fantasy tale that also hit my soft spots. It’s set in South Africa (check!), but its not bogged down with over explanations, and language translations (check!). So the prose is nice and fluid. Shout out to the author and editors for that. It covers some great themes, like being an outcast, living in the city, and every South African’s favorite topic of choice after Coronavirus, crime. I mean, it seems silly at this stage of regularly reading African Spec Fic, but enjoying a fantastical short set in a place like Joburg, still really hits the spot!

Tends to Zero – Wole Talabi : Cheated with this one. Said I wasn’t going to read it, as Wole is already on this list, but curiosity got the better of me. The short is fucking brilliant! It’s a dark emotional tale, with themes of mental turmoil, which is my bread and butter I guess. It also plays with the age old trope in weird fiction of cities, and if they manifested themselves in some supernatural/fantastical form. The city in question here is Lagos. It reminded me a bit of a short I published in the Kalahari Review, also dealing with cities manifesting themselves.

The Pop-Intellectual

It has recently occurred to me that it may be time to further our distinctions of the types of intellectuals, or free-thinkers if you prefer *eyeroll*, that exist in today’s society. I believe we can now make three distinctions.

The Intellectual

They tend to look like this dude and hang around libraries and university campuses. They tend to be gathering “data” in “the field” a lot. Often they’re professors or work at non-profit think tanks and research institutions. They like writing books and reeeeeeeealy long articles about reeeeeeally complex stuff and things, that most people don’t seem to care about, even though they probably should. They can be black too. They can be female as well. They can be non-binary. They tend not to have a lot of likes and and followers, because, well, you don’t really get lots of likes for being an intellectual, and trying to further human thought. In fact, you generally get told you’re being negative, and should try some tummy tea, or re-aligning your chakras.

The Pseudo-Intellectual

I like to lump myself in here somewhere. Along with the knowledgeable artist , the investigative journalist, the weirdo activist at all the think tank events, who also raps, but also paints, and does community work in Mitchells Plain regularly.

Seeing as I’m making this up as I go, I should note here that when I define this, I’m not using the “Pseudo” part as an insult. It’s just to separate those who dabble in intellectualism (and dabble well), but don’t pursue it full time. You know, you’re Immortal Technique types. You’re highbrow creatives. People who engage with intellectualism regularly but don’t necessarily pursue it as a a career, and probably spend a little less time on campus and more on the internet selling you healthy super-foods, because they studied Botany in a past life or something. People in the economy of likes and followers, but not necessary down with it. People who write philosophical novels and stuff. That kind of thing.

Tariq’s new EP is a banger, and full of intellectual stuff and things.

The Pop-Intellectual

This is the designation I believe we used to give to the Pseudo-Intellectual, but the internet has given us a new breed of super super super mutant pseudo intellectuals, whom we shall refer to as Pop-Intellectuals.

The oh so desperate to be a free-thinker that I absorb everything pop culture tells me because I actually believe pop icons are intellectuals and/or free thinkers. Free thought can only come from those who are rich and famous. A professional philosopher could never have a free thought worth my time, but I better check Billboard’s No.1 pop track for my next dose of Epistemology.

The fake outragers. The, this deep issue is trending now, I better jump on it, and freak out on the internet quick, so I can get likes and more followers (okay fine, we all do that from time to time hehe).

The Pop-Intellectual in their natural habitat. Notice everything around them burns while they remain unperturbed. This is the blind confidence of one with complete faith in their favorite pop-icon, who has confirmed to them that everything is indeed, fine. No further research is required into the ramifications of being on fire if your pop-icon has confirmed to you that fire is harmless.

He Who Should Not Be Named and his cult following. The type to gleefully inform you that you can separate art from the artist, and think they’ve blown your mind. Really, I mean really? Wow I certainly never knew that, and I definitely don’t have my own mind, and my own thoughts that dictate when I will and will not decide to exercise my right to separate art from the artist. Oh yes I better listen to that thing you’re trying to force me to listen to, because, OMG, I can separate art from the artist. Amazing.

The Pop-Intellectual doesn’t seem to like books a lot, or the library, or even googling anything they talk about. This is because they apply no rigor to their alleged intellectualism. I mean, who needs research when celebrities are experts on every single topic that ever existed, like ever, since, like, the beginning of all time when the earth was flat and stuff.

They never dig their heels in on a single issue and see it through. They seem to believe they can solve complex issues like racism and sexism, by not going to Starbucks for a couple of days. They’re lazy about real issues. They need them to go away fast, so they can go back to posting about how woke they are, and throw in a misquote of a philosopher like a Ayn Rand (seriously…ewww, don’t abuse philosophy for your narcissism, it’s gross man).

As soon as their favorite pop-icon or corporation issues a weak apology, or new album, all is well, and justice has been restored to world. They take economic advice from famous fashion models. They take medical advice from reality stars. They always have the loudest mouth, but their utterings are void of substance. They’re, as Greg Puciato would say: a mouth without a heart – an action without meaning.

Notes From A Presentation at The Luthuli Institute For Peace and Development

On Thursday 22 March 2018, The Albert and Nokukhanya Luthuli Peace and Development Institute launched, and held its first colloquium. The topic of the colloquium was, Understanding The Culture of Violence as an Impediment to Development: Peace and Development as The Foundations For South Africa’s Future Advancement.

I was asked to do a presentation based on an article I published in The Thinker last year. You can find the article here: http://www.thethinker.co.za/resources/72%20THINKER.pdf. It’s called South Africa: A History of Cultural Violence.

The presentation and event in general went very well. It was empowering to interact and communicate with individuals of various ages and affiliations who share some common ideas and understanding.

Some difficult topics were discussed openly; many South Africans refuse to even accept, let alone even discuss some of these issues, especially without degrading to name calling and insults.

Here are some things that were openly acknowledged , and discussed.

South Africa is a violent society. Both physically and structurally.
South African violence runs very deep historically and structurally.
The above point means there are no easy solutions to South African violence. Throwing police, PMCs, and military at everything just won’t cut it.
South Africa is an extremely racist, sexist, and classist society.
South African violence won’t go away if the above three issues, along with their nasty cousin inequality, are not meaningfully dealt with.
As Government and the Private Sector tend to fluctuate in their effectiveness, citizens likely need to take some matters into their own hands.
One such was is reaching out and interacting with Civil Society (we have various NGOs and activist groups) to heal South African society.
Strong Civil Society institutes may provide some kind of buffer against Government and Private Sector failure.
South Africans as a whole need to educate themselves more on peace studies, as well as learn how other societies with violent pasts, have instigated strong measures to ensure the cycle of violence and generational trauma does not ensue perpetually. Hint: there’s a reason America still has Nazis, while Germany does not. It’s pretty much because the Germans used their brains, and made Nazism illegal. Duh!

Here’s a link to the notes on my presentation. Oh, and don’t forget you can follow and support me directly via Patreon (it’s more music and fiction orientated currently), if you like what I do. Gotta throw that in there hehe! We still live in a capitalist society, and money doesn’t grow on trees. Meh!

Back 2 Basics Cultural Violence Presentation

Dilman Dila’s ‘The Trouble With Afrofuturism’

I just read Dilman Dila’s ‘The Trouble with Afrofuturism’ and found it quite poignant. It touches on a number of things that scratch around my mind when I hear the term. Such as, what does it actually mean? Really though? What does it mean? How broad is this thing, and as Dila notes, there’s almost a fanciful, one size fits all approach, where the definition varies according to what the user wants to describe as Afrofuturistic.

Definition arguments aside though Dila’s piece also made me think of the ‘one-way transaction’ style I feel Afrofuturism sometimes falls victim too. These are mostly behind the scenes, niggles, that industry personnel would be aware of, but consumers probably aren’t paying too much attention to.

For example the issue of Lina Iris Viktor, vs Black Panther & Co. For those unaware, Viktor alleges her artworks were stolen for use in the music video ‘All The Stars’ by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. I would say she has a very strong case here, as she was contacted twice to participate, and declined.

If you’re not schooled on Entertainment Industry Bullshit 101, the general stealing process operates in this manner. First, you, Leviathan Artist Inc. contact lesser known artist and ask them to participate for A. Exposure or B. Peanuts. Said person declines your ridiculous offer, as they actually want to pay the rent, and/or highly value their work (as they should, they made it!). You, Leviathan Artist Inc. then hire other, probably even lessor known artist, and ask them if they can make something ‘similar’, usually taking precaution to remain in the grey area of copyright infringement just in case someone notices. This is mostly to avoid bad publicity. You don’t really have to worry about the legalities as you probably have more lawyers, and you can run a smear campaign claiming the artist is a bitter hater, whose own self-pity and mental illness is the reason they’re suing you. I’m not saying this is what went down in this case, it’s just how it generally goes down.

Anyway, industry politics (bullshit) aside, as noted in the piece:
“In an interview, Ms. Viktor said what matters to her most is the principle, not compensation. “Cultural appropriation is something that continually happens to African-American artists,” she said, “and I want to make a stand.”

Things get very strange here. A team consisting of African-Americans, making a movie that’s supposed to represent black excellence, and Afrofuturism I suppose, rip-off (allegedly…) a British-Liberian’s artwork? I find no better way to describe this scenario other than: a complete mindfuck.

There’s also that slightly colonial smell of claiming intellectual property, and narrative merely because you have the bigger gun. I don’t like that I sometimes observe a weird colonial type thing going on in the creation of Afrofuturist works. I also find myself constantly seeing the “I Have the Bigger Gun” phenomena in the juxtaposition between what African Spec Fic authors (or movie directors in Dila’s case) living in Africa can achieve versus what those living in more developed nations can.

It largely boils down to access: social capital; funds; decent infrastructure. The world has a hierarchy (even with the internet), so on average, there’s generally going to be more infrastructure to take advantage of, off the African continent. It is what it is. There’s just something very painful in that fact. Despite these optimistic Afrofutures (Afrofuturies? Afrofutury? Afrofuture`?) we might like to see, most Africans still have to leave the continent, and access Western infrastructures, in order for those very Afrofutures to reach your computer screen in the first place. It’s a biting irony…

This goes onto Dila’s discussion of the difficulties of imagining and ingesting Utopian Afrofutures when you actually live in Africa. Most of the daily experiences living in Africa are so far removed such Utopian concepts that you find yourself with Schizobrain, walking between fantasy ideals and real world realities. Dystopia might be a dead genre, but dystopia is largely what I see when walking the insanely unequal streets of South Africa, hence why I write a lot of it.

I’m definitely on the fence about this whole Utopian Afrofuturism thing. I prefer a more Mamdani inspired interpretation. In a post from last year, I noted, contrary to what is often a Black African knee-jerk reaction to decolonization, that Mamdani suggests the future of Africa may not be a revert to traditional beliefs, and a throwing away of all Western influences. Instead he suggests, it may be a convergence of the two, which creates something new and unorthodox.

I feel somewhat the same about Afrofuturism at times. It may also be the South Africa in me, as we’re such a mishmash of Afro and Euro centrism, I find it difficult to turn off that lens. I was also not born in South Africa, so that strange limbo place between African and African diaspora is pretty much my comfort zone.

Either way, I believe a more realistic Afrofuturism might speak to the convergence of our current realities, and how we hope things might be. Maybe an African does create a new amazing technology that defies all expectations, and could save the entire continent, and turn it into a Utopia. But then again, maybe the West steals it from us, with the help of our limp politicians and we reap none of the benefits. Who knows?

Social Media Rant

Creepily, Facebook just asked me if I think they’re making the world a better place. So I opted to go full rant in my response, and let it all hang out. Not because they’ll give a shit, but catharsis maybe?

I’m unsure what social media platforms are supposed to be at this stage. As a medium to interact and engage with friends, facebook isn’t that great anymore. As such it’s now more of a platform to market oneself and one’s products. However, in this regard Facebook has failed somewhat too, with the prioritization of big business and big budgets. It is no longer as effective as a small entrepreneur to market products, as big business can essentially always pay more for their products to bombard customers in every corner of the web.

This was not the case before, where small entrepreneurs used to stand a chance of having their products appear equally next to big business if people liked the product. This in essence defeats the previous open opportunity the internet and social media used to represent. It is all but monopolized now.

Monopolies breed inefficiency, laxity, and cut out innovation in favour of their own products and services, which often times are archaic, overpriced, and make use of excess slave labour. This is one way Facebook may not be making the world a better place.

Secondly, Facebook’s algorithms seem to place quantity over quality. Therefore, poorly researched and written fake news articles are more likely to become popular, despite them not even being factual. This may be a technical programming issue, however many minority activist, and intellectual groups view this as an active assault on intellectualism and minority views, with Facebook curating information in favour of privilege (again, returning to point one where he/she who pays most, appears most) .Thus Facebook could be seen to be promoting non-intellectualism, and poor quality literature.

On the plus side, Facebook is a great place to network with those in your field if you’re an introvert. Similarly, with some meticulous curating, socializing can be bearable on Facebook, and keep one in contact with those who are far away. Also, with much sifting and effort, one can occasionally use Facebook to find, and/or organize events, but the above caveats still apply.