If you like your stories brief, with a twist of oddity, then this collection of 17 predominantly speculative fiction stories might suit. There’s a mix of myth, magical realism, folklore and science fiction, replete with vivid, original imagery. Some are collaborations with other writers.
Stories range from two pages to just over 20. All are laced with poetic language, making images seem strange and difficult to comprehend initially. First lines in particular make the reader pause. The lead story begins, ‘The colour is full of shade and smells like crusts of fruit’. Or this first line from ‘A Pod of Mermaids’: ‘Rain was a hungry widow’.
Locales for each story vary widely. Africa and Melbourne are most common, but Paris and the USA also feature. Recurring themes appear throughout. The concept of new life – either neonatal or via migration – underpins many stories, as do gender dynamics, race, trauma, loss and grief.
Stories vary in strength and impact, but none are more powerful than the titular, ‘Danged Black Thing’. Bacon subverts race – and perhaps the preconceived ideas of the reader – by anthropomorphising computers and devices. These ‘black things’ lure a husband away from his wife. The concept is as original as it is convincing. Filial love is approached from various angles in ‘The Widow’s Rooster’ (a fable exposing nepotism and hubris) and ‘Still She Visits’ (a story of loss and loneliness).
Bacon makes you work to understand her writing, but the originality of the imagery makes the effort worthwhile.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eugen M. Bacon, MA, MSc, PhD, is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She’s a British Fantasy Award winner, a Foreword Book of the Year silver award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the British Science Fiction Association, Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadow Awards. Eugen was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing by Transit Lounge Publishing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Eugen’s creative work has appeared worldwide, including in Award Winning Australian Writing, Fantasy Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction. New releases: Serengotti (novel), Languages of Water (ed), Mage of Fools (novel), Chasing Whispers (collection), An Earnest Blackness (essay collection).
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