“What are the best Afrofuturism Books of All-time?” We looked at 164 of the top Afrofuturist books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 41 titles, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Afrofuturism” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 100+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

Top 41 Afrofuturist Books

41 .) Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis, #2) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads

Told in the haunting voice of Lilith, the heroine of “Dawn”, this book is thestory of Lilith’s only son, Akin. Though he resembles a normal human, Akin isthe first “construct”–part man/part alien.

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40 .) Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness by Reynaldo Anderson

Lists It Appears On:

• NEXT
• University Of Illinois

The ideas and practices related to afrofuturism have existed for most of the 20th century, especially in the north American African diaspora community. After Mark Dery coined the word “afrofuturism” in 1993, Alondra Nelson as a member of an online forum, along with other participants, began to explore the initial terrain and intellectual underpinnings of the concept noting that “AfroFuturism has emerged as a term of convenience to describe analysis, criticism and cultural production that addresses the intersections between race and technology.” Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astroblackness represents a transition from previous ideas related to afrofuturism that were formed in the late 20th century around issues of the digital divide, music and literature. Afrofuturism 2.0 expands and broadens the discussion around the concept to include religion, architecture, communications, visual art, philosophy and reflects its current growth as an emerging global Pan African creative phenomenon.

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39 .) AfroSF: Science Fiction by Ivor W. Hartmann

Lists It Appears On:

• DC Library
• Goodreads

AfroSF is the first ever anthology of Science Fiction by African writers only that was open to submissions from across Africa and abroad. It is comprised of original (previously unpublished) works only, from stellar established and upcoming African writers: Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Lotz, Tendai Huchu, Cristy Zinn, Ashley Jacobs, Nick Wood, Tade Thompson, S.A. Partridge, Chinelo Onwualu, Uko Bendi Udo, Dave de Burgh, Biram Mboob, Sally-Ann Murray, Mandisi Nkomo, Liam Kruger, Chiagozie Fred Nwonwu, Joan De La Haye, Mia Arderne, Rafeeat Aliyu, Martin Stokes, Clifton Gachagua, and Efe Okogu.

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38 .) Akata Witch (Akata Witch #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Unconventional Librarian

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she’s albino. She’s a terrific athlete, but can’t go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a “free agent” with latent magical power. Soon she’s part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

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37 .) An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Lists It Appears On:

• Electric Lit
• Goodreads

“Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot–if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war.”

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36 .) Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library

A new era begins for the Black Panther! MacArthur Genius and National Book Award-winning writer T-Nehisi Coates (BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME) takes the helm, confronting T’Challa with a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before. When a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the land famed for its incredible technology and proud warrior traditions will be thrown into turmoil. If Wakanda is to survive, it must adapt–but can its monarch, one in a long line of Black Panthers, survive the necessary change? Heavy lies the head that wears the cowl!

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35 .) Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads

A perfect introduction for new readers and a must-have for avid fans, this New York Times Notable Book includes “Bloodchild,” winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and “Speech Sounds,” winner of the Hugo Award. Appearing in print for the first time, “Amnesty” is a story of a woman named Noah who works to negotiate the tense and co-dependent relationship between humans and a species of invaders. Also new to this collection is “The Book of Martha” which asks: What would you do if God granted you the ability—and responsibility—to save humanity from itself?

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34 .) Blue Light by Walter Mosley

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• The Seattle Public Library

The human race has just begun. In the Bay Area in the mid-1960s, several people are struck by a cosmic blue light that “quickens” their DNA, causing them instantaneously to evolve far beyond the present state of the human race. They become the full actualization of humankind, with strengths, understandings & communication abilities that exceed our imagining. Blue Light is the story of this quickening, & the conflict between these precursors of a new race of humans & the old breed they seem destined to supplant. Unfolding from the point of view of Chance, a half-black, half-white lost soul who becomes a follower of the “blues,” the novel traces battles among those struck by the light (including one who becomes the living embodiment of Death) & their quest to bring their message of evolution & higher purpose to the rest of the world. Blue Light explores some of the questions about race, identity, & humanity that are the hallmark of the author’s other best-selling fiction, but his mind-stretching new approach will take his readers to a fascinating place they’ve never traveled.

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33 .) Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Unconventional Librarian

“Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.”

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32 .) Dark Matter: Reading the Bones by Sheree Renée Thomas

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

This sequel to the award-winning Dark Matter an-thology features another extraordinary collection of speculative fiction by black writers. Like its groundbreaking predecessor, DARK MATTER: Reading the Bones introduces black speculative fiction writers to readers who may not have realized the depth and breadth of these works. This anthology includes original short fiction and previously published works from Charles Johnson, the National Book Award-winning author of Middle Passage; Tananarive Due; Walter Mosley; W. E. B. Du Bois; Samuel R. Delany; Nalo Hopkinson; Wanda Coleman; and many more. Containing approximately 30 stories, ranging from the early part of the 20th century through the most cutting-edge work of today, this is a powerful collection that will appeal to the culturally diverse audience of science fiction readers.

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31 .) Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Wear Your Voice Mag

Bellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. Something has happened there…. The population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. And into this disaster zone comes a young man–poet, lover, and adventurer–known only as the Kid. Tackling questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Dhalgren is a literary marvel and groundbreaking work of American magical realism.

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30 .) Everfair by Nisi Shawl

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

“What if the African natives developed steam power ahead of their colonial oppressors? What might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier?

Fabian Socialists from Great Britain join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “”owner,”” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.”

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29 .) Falling in Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library

“Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, Sister Mine) is an internationally-beloved storyteller. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having “”an imagination that most of us would kill for,”” her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are filled with striking imagery, unlikely beauty, and delightful strangeness.

In this long-awaited collection, Hopkinson continues to expand the boundaries of culture and imagination. Whether she is retelling The Tempest as a new Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or herding chickens that occasionally breathe fire, Hopkinson continues to create bold fiction that transcends boundaries and borders.”

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28 .) Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Huffington Post

This is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted-and still wants-to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself.

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27 .) Imago (Xenogenesis, #3) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads

The futures of both humans and Oankali rest in one young being’s successful metamorphosis into adulthood.

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26 .) Mindscape by Andrea Hairston

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

“Mindscape takes us to a future in which the world itself has been literally divided by the Barrier, a phenomenon that will not be ignored. For 115 years this extraterrestrial, epi-dimensional entity has divided the earth into warring zones. Although a treaty to end the interzonal wars has been hammered out, power-hungry politicians, gangsters, and spiritual fundamentalists are determined to thwart it. Celestina, the treaty’s architect, is assassinated, and her protoge, Ellini, a talented renegade and one of the few able to negotiate the Barrier, takes up her mantle. Now Elleni and a motley crew of allies risk their lives to make the treaty work. Can they repair their fractured world before the Barrier devours them completely?

What rich and provocative territory this amazingly written first novel explores, what memorable characters it compels us to confront—renegade gene scientists and ethnic throwbacks, slippery politicos and “”expendable”” Extras, ghost dancers and double consciousness diviners conjuring through an enigmatic veil—each struggling in complex circumstances to navigate survival, identity, and self in a world thrown off its course, each speaking in distinct voices that stay with you long after you’ve left their unforgettable stories.”

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25 .) More Brilliant Than the Sun by Kodwo Eshun

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NEXT

More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction is one of the most extraordinary books on music ever written. Part manifesto for a militant posthumanism, part journey through the unacknowledged traditions of diasporic science fiction, this book finds the future shock in Afrofuturist sounds from jazz, dub and techno to funk, hip hop and jungle. By exploring the music of such musical luminaries as Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Lee Perry, Dr Octagon, Parliament and Underground Resistance, theorist and artist Kodwo Eshun mobilises their concepts in order to open the possibilities of sonic fiction: the hitherto unexplored intersections between science fiction and organised sound. Situated between electronic music history, media theory, science fiction and Afrodiasporic studies, More Brilliant than the Sun is one of the key works to stake a claim for the generative possibilities of Afrofuturism.

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24 .) My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• The Seattle Public Library

When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever.

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23 .) Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads

Lauren Olamina’s love is divided among her young daughter, her community, and the revelation that led Lauren to found a new faith that teaches “God Is Change”. But in the wake of environmental and economic chaos, the U.S. government turns a blind eye to violent bigots who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat. And soon Lauren must either sacrifice her child and her followers — or forsake the religion that can transform human destiny.

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22 .) Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Electric Lit

“A psychic net hangs across the world, and only the Patternists can control it. They use their telepathic powers to enslave lesser life forms, to do battle with the diseased, half-human creatures who rage outside their walls, and, sometimes, to fight amongst themselves. Ruling them all is the Patternmaster, a man of such psychic strength that he can influence the thoughts of all those around him. But he cannot stop death, and when he is gone, chaos will reign.

The Patternmaster has hundreds of children, but only one of them—Coransee—has ambition to match his father’s. To seize the throne he will have to coopt or kill every one of his siblings, and he will not shy from the task. But when one brother takes refuge among the savages, a battle ensues that will change the destiny of every being on the planet.
“

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21 .) Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson

Lists It Appears On:

• Electric Lit
• Goodreads

“Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls gave Abby a permanent limp, but left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father, the god of growing things–a highly unusual childhood that made them extremely close. Ever since Abby’s magical talent began to develop, though, in the form of an unearthly singing voice, the sisters have become increasingly distant.

Today, Makeda has decided it’s high time to move out and make her own life among the other nonmagical humans–after all, she’s one of them. In Cheerful Rest, a run-down warehouse space, Makeda finds exactly what she’s been looking for: an opportunity to live apart from Abby and begin building her own independent life. There’s even a resident band, led by the charismatic (and attractive) building superintendent.”

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20 .) The Gilda Stories by Jewelle L. Gomez

Lists It Appears On:

• Unconventional Librarian
• Wear Your Voice Mag

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who “shares the blood” by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

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19 .) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy, #1) by N.K. Jemisin

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother’s death and her family’s bloody history.

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18 .) The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2) by N.K. Jemisin

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

“The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night.

Essun — once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger — has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power – and her choices will break the world.”

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17 .) The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) by N.K. Jemisin

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

“The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.”

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16 .) Wild Seed (Patternmaster, #1) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads

Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex — or design. He fears no one — until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss…and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one — until she meets Doro. From African jungles to the colonies of America, Doro and Anyanwu weave together a pattern of destiny that not even immortals can imagine.

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15 .) Mind of My Mind (Patternmaster, #2) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads
• Wear Your Voice Mag

For 4,000 years, an immortal has spread the seeds of a master race, using the downtrodden as his private breeding stock. But now a young ghetto telepath has found a way to awaken–and rule–her superhuman kind, igniting a psychic battle as she challenges her creator for her right to free her people.

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14 .) Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond by Bill Campbell

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• University Of Illinois
• Wear Your Voice Mag

Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond is a groundbreaking speculative fiction anthology that showcases the work from some of the most talented writers inside and outside speculative fiction across the globe—including Junot Diaz, Victor LaValle, Lauren Beukes, N. K. Jemisin, Rabih Alameddine, S. P. Somtow, and more.

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13 .) Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements by Walidah Imarisha

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NEXT
• The Seattle Public Library

Whenever we envision a world without war, prisons, or capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. These visionary tales span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. Also features essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.

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12 .) Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads
• Huffington Post

When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister’s young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny… and the birth of a new faith.

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11 .) The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads

Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist wowed critics and readers everywhere and marked the debut of an important American writer. This marvellously inventive, genre-bending, noir-inflected novel, set in the curious world of elevator inspection, portrays a universe parallel to our own, where matters of morality, politics, and race reveal unexpected ironies.

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10 .) The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Lists It Appears On:

• Best Science Fiction Books
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian

“The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.

Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Tres will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.”

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9 .) Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Electric Lit
• Goodreads

In the Ooni Kingdom, children born dada—with vines growing in their hair—are rumored to have special powers. Zahrah Tsami doesn’t know anything about that. She feels normal. Others think she’s different—they fear her. Only Dari, her best friend, isn’t afraid of her. But then something begins to happen—something that definitely marks Zahrah as different—and the only person she can tell is Dari. He pushes her to investigate, edging them both closer and closer to danger. Until Dari’s life is on the line. Only Zahrah can save him, but to do so she’ll have to face her worst fears alone, including the very thing that makes her different.

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8 .) Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian

“Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her.

Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene–though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives–and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.”

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7 .) Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian

The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways–farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother.

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6 .) Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian

Lilith lyapo awoke from a centuries-long sleep to find herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. Creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased strength, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to Earth–but for a price.

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5 .) The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Best Science Fiction Books
• Goodreads
• Unconventional Librarian

“A season of endings has begun.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. “

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4 .) Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads
• Huffington Post
• The Seattle Public Library

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient African tongue.

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3 .) Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture by Ytasha L. Womack

Lists It Appears On:

• DC Library
• Goodreads
• Huffington Post
• NEXT
• University Of Illinois

In this hip, accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism, author Ytasha Womack introduces readers to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works, the innovators from the past, and the wide range of subjects they explore. From the sci-fi literature of Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and N. K. Jemisin to the musical cosmos of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, to the visual and multimedia artists inspired by African Dogon myths and Egyptian deities, the book’s topics range from the “alien” experience of blacks in America to the “wake up” cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves.

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2 .) Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Lists It Appears On:

• Blerds
• Goodreads
• Huffington Post
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

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1 .) Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora by Sheree R. Thomas

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Best Science Fiction Books
• Electric Lit
• Goodreads
• The Seattle Public Library
• Unconventional Librarian
• Wear Your Voice Mag

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

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