N. K. Jemisin

"THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS ... FOR THE LAST TIME. 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...

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years, collapses as its greatest city is destroyed by a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heartland of the world's sole continent,...

"The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and roaming bands of people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape, and murder. When one small community is overrun, Lauren Olamina, an 18 year old black woman with the hereditary train of 'hyperempathy' -- which causes her to feel others' pain as her own -- sets off on foot along the dangerous...

After a band of killers begins murdering godlings, blind artist Oree Shoth wonders if her recent guest is at the heart of it, his presence putting her in danger.

In a city where Gatherers harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to judge the corrupt, Ehiru, the most famous of the city's Gatherers, learns that he must protect the woman he was sent to kill or watch the city be devoured by forbidden magic.

Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares: a mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens, dooming them to die screaming in their sleep.

"This timely and gorgeously illustrated companion book to an exciting Smithsonian exhibition explores the power of Afrofuturism to reclaim the past and reimagine Black futures. Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures explores the evolving and exhilarating concept of Afrofuturism, a lens used to imagine a more empowering future for the Black community through music, art, and speculative fiction. Sumptuous, beautifully designed spreads feature 100...