The Black Fantastic is a must‑read for space sci‑fi fans who want the genre to do more than plot devices and starships; it bends cosmic imagination toward history, memory and political repair in twenty sharp, inventive stories curated by André M. Carrington.

The Editor’s Framing and Credentials

André M. Carrington brings clear scholarly purpose to the anthology: he frames Afrofuturism as a discipline that rewires pasts and futures, and his curatorial choices make the collection feel both academically rigorous and wildly readable. Carrington is the editor of this volume and the author of Speculative Blackness, and he directs work in speculative fiction as an academic field — credentials that shape the anthology’s scope and argument.

How the Collection Expands Space Sci‑Fi

The book itself is shaped to broaden what “space sci‑fi” can mean. Published by Library of America in February 2025, the collection gathers twenty stories that cross science fiction, fantasy, horror and the uncanny, insisting that “space” in Black speculative writing is as often psychic and historical as it is astronomical. The roster includes a mix of established and emergent voices — from N.K. Jemisin and Nalo Hopkinson to Phenderson Djèlí Clark, Victor LaValle, Tochi Onyebuchi and Alaya Dawn Johnson — demonstrating the anthology’s ambition to map a plural Afrofuturist landscape.

Cover art for the anthology. Image: LOA.org

Reworking Cosmic Tropes into Reparative Projects

What makes The Black Fantastic especially valuable to space sci‑fi readers is how many pieces repurpose cosmic tropes into reparative projects. Some stories read like moral parables about communal survival; others use time, portals or speculative artefacts to interrogate the afterlives of slavery, extractive histories, and the politics of belonging. Phenderson Djèlí Clark’s contribution to the collection, for example, again shows how speculative revision can excavate historical violence and recast it through uncanny or folkloric strategies. Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Nebula‑winning turn in the anthology uses vampiric myth to complicate narratives of power and ecology in ways that read like political fables.

Formal Variety as a Deliberate Argument

Formally, the anthology is generous and restless. Carrington sequenced pieces so tonal shifts feel intentional: elegiac lyrical work sits beside jagged satire, experimental voice pieces shoulder canonical‑scale parables, and genre boundaries blur in productive ways. That variety is not just stylistic showmanship; it is an argument: the tools of space sci‑fi — speculation, scale, estrangement — can be repurposed to insist that futurity must reckon with memory.

Critical Response and Reader Reaction

Critical reaction has been broadly positive. Reviewers have praised Carrington’s editorial sweep and the anthology’s capacity to mix grandmaster names with daring newcomers, and critics singled out the book as both an excellent introduction to Afrofuturism and a substantive statement on contemporary Black speculative practice. Publishers Weekly and other outlets marked the collection as notable in early reviews. Readers responding on community platforms have echoed that enthusiasm: the collection’s highs are frequently described as luminous, even as any long anthology’s variety means some pieces resonate more strongly for different readers.

Why Space Sci‑Fi Fans Should Read Black Fantastic

Why recommend this to space sci‑fi readers now? Because The Black Fantastic refuses the genre’s default imagination of empty cosmic vistas and asks instead: who gets to design futures, whose stories travel between worlds, and what does repair look like on a planetary or interstellar scale? These are not rhetorical flourishes — the stories show concrete models: technology functioning as memory device, speculative architecture for diasporic care, and fictional politics that demand ethical attention before spectacle. The result is a collection that expands your map of space‑sci‑fi rather than simply adding another pin.

Classroom‑Ready and Conversation‑Fuel

Reading this anthology is also pedagogically rich. Carrington’s introduction and the book’s sequence make it classroom‑friendly: each story opens pathways into discussions of race, diaspora, sound and the political uses of speculative forms, making it ideal for book groups and courses that want to interrogate the boundaries of science fiction. For casual readers who love space sci‑fi’s sense of wonder, the anthology offers rewards too: surprises, emotional punches, and pieces that linger long after you close the cover.

A Constellation, Not a Single Manifesto

The Black Fantastic is not a single argument but a constellation: some stories look outward to stars and futures, others dig inward to domestic hauntings and historical archives. Read together, they form a persuasive case that Afrofuturism is core to any robust conversation about space sci‑fi’s future. Library of America’s curation and Carrington’s editorial lens make this anthology both a cultural artefact and an accessible portal into a living tradition.

Publisher Details & Where to Buy

The title is widely distributed through major booksellers and online retailers, so you can usually find it via national chains, independent bookstores, or platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you prefer libraries or institutional access, many public and academic libraries can order the anthology through standard library vendors and literature suppliers.

How to Approach the Book (Reading Suggestion)

If you want an entry point: read a few of the standout pieces slowly, annotate the lines that feel like manifesto statements, and then circle back for the quieter work — the anthology rewards rereading. For editors and writers of space sci‑fi, The Black Fantastic is a reminder that invention is necessary but not sufficient: imagination must be coupled with historical intelligence and political imagination to create truly expansive futures.

Final Verdict for SciNexic Readers

In short, The Black Fantastic is our Space Sci‑Fi Book of the Week because it remaps the vocabulary of cosmic fiction — insisting that futures built without memory are incomplete, and that the most interesting space sci‑fi now asks hard questions about who counts in the maps we draw of tomorrow. Read it this week and bring a pencil.