Harare Review of Books

240 pages.

US publication date: June 20, 2023 (Apex Book Company)

Fiction/SFF anthology.

This superb collection of stories shows the range, skill and remarkable literary mind of Eugen Bacon. What a journey it took me on, and what a wonderful introduction to her writing. Bacon has won many honours, and Danged Black Thing makes it easy to see why.

One story here is set in a future London full of holograms and bad dates. Another comes from a dry future where water for general use is extracted from the dead. In Kampala, a man persuades his wife to get a chip implanted so he can have access to unlimited data. Angerboda is the goddess whose adopted sons seem to turn into dictators.

There are two stories specifically about immigrant life: in The Failing Name, the contrast between the fantasy of life overseas and reality is shown when a girl is sent away to live with her rather cruel aunt; and Rain Doesn’t Fall on One Roof is about a woman who left home for university on another continent, and who now struggles with the financial burdens and loneliness of being a student and mother without her social support system.

The Window’s Rooster is a short fable, similar to what you would hear around a fire at night in many parts of Africa. One of my favourite stories is the fantastic one written with E. Don Harpe—whose bio says he’s descended from America’s first serial killers!—about a certain dictator, The Man, whose country was “stolen” (in his words) by Milton Obote, and whose memory has now faded to irrelevance. A Taste of Unguja is a surreal tale of vengeance, African-style. Still She Visits is a tender and heart-breaking ghost story about sisters, separation, and AIDS. The title story, also written with Harpe, is a very cool and sublimely slick story about possessed machines.

Bacon takes readers to many dreamy and delightfully weird times and places with this collection. There is much that feels unusual even for this genre. In addition, most of these stories are about Africans or Africa, making Danged Black Thing distinctly Africanfuturist (possibly with a touch of Africanjujuism). This elevates Bacon to one of my particular favourites; so few writers are writing in this area, and even fewer with such skill.

Read this particularly if you like speculative fiction, if you enjoy unusual short stories, or perhaps want to be introduced to the form by a highly proficient and very imaginative writer. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Apex Book Company for access!

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