The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer - Sci-Fi Short Story Collection for Book Clubs & Sci-Fi Enthusiasts
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Product Description
New York Times bestseller!In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, futurist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms.Whoever controls our memories controls the future.Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborators have crafted a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts—as a means of self-conception—could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether you were human, AI, or other, your life and sentience were dictated by those who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate.That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free.Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it’s like to live in such a totalitarian society . . . and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the tradition of speculative fiction writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor—and filled with powerful themes and Monáe’s emblematic artistic vision—The Memory Librarian serves to readers tales that dissect the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, reaching through to the worlds of memory and time, and the stakes and power that pulse there.
Customer Reviews
Written in collaboration with some amazing co-authors this book is a series of short stories, each set in the same world but not sharing characters. But even so the stories inform each other, craft a creative and haunting vision of the future and the future’s future. Hope in the face of what could easily be a dystopian vision is a powerful thread in these stories. As is being true to yourself and accepting of other’s authentic selves.These stories also read as if they are part of a large project, as if they are echoes from an ongoing real place with language and references that seem to be assumed to be known even as they are introduced for the first time in the text.I’m a fan of Janelle Monáe’s music but not so serious a fan as to know her lyrics by heart (I’ve even had the fortune of getting to see her perform years ago for a very small private crowd at a tech industry party in SF) but I suspect that having read this I’ll catch echoes and references from her songs in this book.Highly recommended as a powerful piece of collaborative art and as a collection of visions of a better future, one we may just be able to build together if we can maintain optimism and hope and our unique authentic selves in the face of pressure to forget and to conform.
