Thread by @doctorow

Riot Baby by @TochiTrueStory is an incandescent Afrofuturist sf novella that is so fleet-of-foot as it sprints from one character and time and setting to another that it's dizzying, whirling readers through fierce bravery in the face of dystopia.

us.macmillan.com/books/97812502…

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Ella was raised in LA, in a neighborhood where gangbangers do drive-bys and the cops inflict terror with impunity. Ella has a power, one she barely understands, a power that shows her the future, and the future she sees is so often violent and terrifying.

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Ella's little brother is Kev, born on the evening of the Rodney King uprising, a "riot baby" who barely remembers being little in California, who thinks of New York City's projects as home.

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Ella and Kev live a life of sudden violence and grinding poverty, of overt racism and structural, deep-rooted racism that's even worse.

Ella comes into more of her powers -- telekenesis, telepathy, dream-walking, mind-reading -- just in time.

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For now their lives are marked by the increasing tempo of racism and the rise of white supremcy and the carceral state, broken windows policing and mass incarceration.

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Their lives diverge when Kev lands in Riker's, with a sentence that stretches to years due to penalties for his failure to be a model prisoner.

Ella is outside, learning to use her powers, visiting Riker's -- sometimes in the visitor's room, sometimes in dreams.

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Onyebuchi's deft handling of the characters and the transitions between them -- and the times and places that mark them -- are the kind of thing that makes science fiction such a powerful medium.

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His writing hearkens back to the action-packed, pulp roots of the genre. Add to that Onyebuchi's vivid characterizations and superb ear for dialog and you've got a book that blazes with rage and glory.

eof/