Short Story Review: 2043...A Merman I Should Turn to Be by Nisi Shawl

2043...A Merman I Should Turn to Be by Nisi Shawl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book 3 of the Amazon Black Stars series of short speculative fiction stories. Not my favourite of the 4 that I have read so far. I liked the way it created an underwater city to which escaping landers were fleeing, paying for time limited, transit corridor opening licenses through hostile surrounding territory - a bit like a cross between the "40 acres and a mule"  reparations promise to freed slaves and the Underground Railroad. On the other hand I felt it rushed in some parts, the premis requiring a longer piece to do it justice.

Short Story Review: These Alien Skies by C.T. Rwizi

These Alien Skies by C.T. Rwizi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So many layers packed into a short story! These Alien Skies is Book 4 in the Amazon Series Black Stars.Msizi and Tariro are copiloting a starship through the first ever wormhole when it explodes leaving them with no way home. The injured Msizi is aided back to health by the inhabitants of an alien planet, migrants themselves and alien original residents. The story has themes of love and loss, survival, history, colonisation and diaspora, alien tech and communication issues. I liked the way the writer used the colonisation of Africa by Europeans in the protagonist and migrants own histories, his appropriate use of real African languages, Swahili and Dholuo in the story, although with today's onscreen translation it was a bit strange to have their words written in English. Neat ending bring all three groups together.