How Long ‘til Black Future Month?, by N. K. Jemisin

[sophia_sol]

A collection of short fiction by NK Jemisin. I don't have a lot to say about this collection, tbh! Jemisin's a good writer, and she has a bunch of very good stories in her. Like in almost any short story collection*, I don't love every story in the collection, but when you're reading a collection by a writer who works for you, the baseline level of worth-reading in the collection is still not bad. And some of the stories are excellent!

A few of the stories in the collection I've read before, but most of them are new to me, and the ones I already knew were worth rereading.

My biggest problem with this collection, tbh, is the ongoing war between my descriptivist values and prescriptivist instincts for language, as applies to the title of the book. "Until" as a word is actually a derivative of "till" so if you want a short form of "until," "till" is right there! You don't need to go for "'til"! That's a form of over-correction! But given the prevalence of "'til," including (obviously!) in professionally-edited writing, I think I am losing this one, and I need to learn how to accept it. Sigh. The eternal struggle.

*every story collection except Zen Cho's Spirits Abroad, where I love every single story!

Comments

[lirazel]

You don't need to go for "'til"!

I wonder if this might have been an attempt to evoke AAVE? Like, "Not that kind of till, our kind of 'til!"

[sophia_sol]

Hmmm interesting thought! I tried googling and didn't see anything about 'til being an AAVE specific thing, and I feel like I've seen plenty of white people using it -- but then, the internet might well not contain all useful data about AAVE, and white people do tend to co-opt language innovations from marginalized language-users. So who knows.

[lirazel]

Who knows indeed! It was just wild speculation. :D

[chestnut_pod]

I do remember the one about the middle-aged Italian chef fondly!

[sophia_sol]

oops, I don't actually remember it anymore already! Maybe when I do reviews of short story collections I should include brief notes about all of the stories....