"Inventive and thought-provoking, this page-turning short story collection packs notable punch on the speculative fiction front."
By turns philosophical and speculative, cautionary and mysterious, Cheryl S. Ntumy’s Black Friday is a boundary-flexing, imagination-stretching short story anthology that shifts between posing existential questions, and addressing themes of power and agency, to a more playful magic realism mode.
The mighty titular story thrusts readers into a throng of rioters who reside in a dystopian Protectorate “fighting for Justice and Equitable Distribution and the Rights of the People and the Sanctity of the Land.” As for the context, “Black Friday is a big day across the Protectorate… a rioter can’t stay in on Black Friday while the Wretched Righteous celebrate the rape of the land. Black Friday is the day rioters push back with everything they’ve got, to remind the Wretched that they still exist”. While the “Wretched Righteous kids are laughing and pointing and taking photos”, a slam dunk of a revelation comes, setting the tone for the rest of this impactful collection.
Special mention must also be made of The Way of Baa’gh: A Sauúiverse Story. “Red is a sign of decay”, it opens in characteristically bold style, and then follows a tautly-written, visceral story of old tales and new imbalances of power among non-humanoids.
Diverse in style and subject, Black Friday is an immersive winner for fans of speculative fiction, in particular, and also comes recommended for short story aficionados who fancy broadening their field of reading.
| Primary Genre | Sharing Diverse Voices |
| Other Genres: |
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Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of short fiction and novels of speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine, World Literature Today and she's also been shortlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction, the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship. She is part of the Sauúti Collective, which created a shared universe for Afrocentric speculative fiction, and a member of Petlo Literary Arts, an organization that develops and promotes creative writing in Botswana. With dark mysteries, cozy magical realism and cautionary tales, this collection has something for everyone, and features nine new stories, including 'Dream State', 'Clickbait' and 'The Feeding Grounds' with other popular tales, such as 'The Storymage' and 'The Way of Baa'gh' (A Sauútiverse story).
Eugen Bacon (Foreword) is an African Australian author. She's a British Fantasy and Foreword Indies Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick, Victorian Premier's Literary Award, and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen was announced in the honor list of the Otherwise Fellowships for 'doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction'. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a 'sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work'. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.
The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.
Black Friday features in the following genres: Dystopian and utopian fiction, Fantasy, Sharing Diverse Voices, Shorter Reads, Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction: special features, Shorter Reads
Black Friday is available in Hardback
Black Friday was written by Cheryl S. Ntumy and published by Flame Tree Collections an imprint of Flame Tree Publishing
Black Friday has 416 pages
Yes it is part of Beyond and Within series
£15.29
