How Long 'til Black Future Month?

I don't read many anthologies and I don't read much speculative fiction, and books like this make me realize I'm missing out.

I haven't read any other Jemisin, but now I need to. Her balance between the “real” and fantasy—and how she uses one to pick apart the other—is precise. You can have no idea what's going on, and still her words hold such significance.

Jemisin doesn't hold back, but she also doesn't spoonfeed. Without getting too heavy-handed, she uses fantastical elements to comment on topics like poverty, parenthood, and authoritarianism.

One way she does this is with ambivalence. A lot of the stories and their characters are both hopeful and bleak—simultaneously defeated and determined. She also has us question (almost perpetually) what signifies cultural advancement. What criteria do we use to evaluate whether an entity or community are civilized, evolved, moral?

I would love to reread this in the future. I'm sure different stories will stand out to different readers at different points in their lives. But generally, this is just a treasure trove. A super weird treasure trove.