A good selection of horror, sci-fi, and similar short stories. I found some of the stories more interesting and captivating than others, but overall the writing is superb and the tales are imaginative. ( )

A collection of short stories by a black author, noted for speculative fiction and Afrocentrism. Features themes of horror, dystopia, racism. As is usual with a collection of short stories some are better/more interesting than others. An interesting read. ( )

This was my first experience with Tananarive Due's writing and I loved it. Pretty awesome collection of thought-provoking speculative horror short stories. Consistently good, and a few were really amazing.

A collection of short stories that, broadly speaking, fall somewhere under the umbrella of speculative fiction -- fantasy, horror, science fiction, possibly magic realism, or combinations thereof -- all of which feature Black Americans and many of which deal with themes of racism or difficult family relationships.

I went into this one with high expectations. I think the only thing of Due's that I'd read before was the short story "Patient Zero" (not included in this particular volume), and it knocked my socks off. My feelings about the stories in this collection were a lot more mixed, though, and I feel like the only the title story came close to having the same impact. I think maybe the simply written child's POV in "Patient Zero" kind of concealed the fact that Due's prose is... a bit lackluster? Not bad, by any means, and I'll take this kind of plain writing over overwrought purple prose any day, but there were moments were I felt the writing style wasn't entirely doing the ideas and characters justice.

Despite that, though, and despite the fact that some of these appealed to me a lot more than others (which is, let's face it, practically a given with any short story compilation), I did find these pieces, on the whole, really interesting. In a good way! Due has a way of not quite taking things were you'd expect them to go, and not ending her stories quite where you'd expect, and even when I didn't find that entirely satisfying, I did find it intriguing, brave, and kind of cool. ( )

Very nice mix of short stories containing works of horror, science fiction, and mystery.

My introduction to the sub-genre of Afrofuturism (the melding of Black history, science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, and alternate history). ( )