#526 Revolution Shuffle- Bao Phi
“Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without
violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative
fiction. All organizing is science fiction.”
This comes from the introduction to the collection
Octoavia’s Brood. It’s a book of social justice science fiction put together in
honor of the great Octavia Butler. What they call Visionary Fiction, this looks
to be quite a unique literary experience, like Butler herself.
We are five months into a distopic wartime reality.
Seventy-percent of the country has turned to zombies and the Asian and
Middle-eastern populations were in internment camp “for their own protection.”
They were working on giant machinery that would attract the zombies away from
the other populations. Guards were there to keep order: “Zombies. Brown people.
On any given day, the armed guards were prepared to shoot either.”
Two armed rebels were overlooking the prison camp ready to
try to liberate their people. They know that most won't want to come, and even
if they did they’d have no safe place to go. But they have to try.
“They strode down the hill together, rifles in hand,
straight for the prison camp. Toward a war that just might turn into something
like a revolution.”
Notable Passage: “Tragic times do not beg for complexity…In
the wake of disaster, America became even less subtle.”
