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The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer Hardcover – April 19, 2022
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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.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Voyager
- Publication dateApril 19, 2022
- Dimensions6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-100063070871
- ISBN-13978-0063070875
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A reminder for those who’ve ever been told they don’t fit in that there’s a world beyond this harsh one and a set of tools that can help them get there. . . The Afrofuturist collection feeds both Monáe’s fan base, who will be hungry to delve deeper into her work, and sci-fi fans looking for another book in the burgeoning Black speculative fiction genre.”
— Washington Post
“A poignant commentary on the power of technology, the preservation of queer identity and the commodification of time. . . The Memory Librarian shows us the future can be an unnerving reflection of our unexamined vices, but we can also plant the seeds for a brighter tomorrow.” — USA Today
“In her book, Monáe offers us a warning, but also a way out. . . Flawed, dirty, proudly glitching, the queer robots of Monáe’s vision refuse to be so easily boiled down into 1s and 0s. The Memory Librarian might not be the answer to the social and political upsets of our time, but it is an answer, and a fiercely inspiring one: a deepening of Afrofuturism’s potential to weaponize our dreams for a freer, more joyous world.” — Wired
“Each story in this collection is a searing but ultimately hopeful glimpse into how marginalized groups can hope and create in a world set against them. Written with a group of collaborators, including award-winning authors and sociologists, this book is reminiscent of the anti-racist and community-building themes present in N.K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor’s work, as well as the utopian philosophy of Ursula K. Le Guin and the dystopian technological vision of Philip K. Dick. It’s a stunning collection of stories.” — Buzzfeed
“Blistering, hopeful, and richly written. . . All readers will finish the book craving more of these extremely queer, bold stories that battle gatekeeping and erasure, digging into both the worst potential of a surveillance state and the gritty glimmer of the rebellion that can defeat it.” — Booklist (starred review)
"A moving, triumphant collection...This is a knockout." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Monáe’s collection speaks to both the sf tradition of mind-control tyranny and the way that the powerful marginalize individuals in order to control the whole. Highly recommended for readers of conspiracy and thought-control sf or of Afrofuturist works by the likes of Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, N.?K. Jemisin, and Nnedi Okorafor." — Library Journal (starred review)
"Emotionally raw and with a wholehearted love for people, these stories will make readers long to forge deeper human connections by sharing and holding one another's memories...A celebration of queer and Afrofuturist science fiction saluting creativity in difference." — Kirkus Reviews
“Janelle Monáe is a creative superstar who has tackled everything from music to fashion to film. And with The Memory Librarian, she enters the literary world, proving that there’s truly nothing she can’t do. . . Echoes of classics like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind mix powerfully with explorations of genderqueerness, love, race, and more. . . True to the science fiction genre, The Memory Librarian is an assemblage of hope; liberation emerges when our memories and histories are used as educators. This one is sure to leave an impression.” — Bust Magazine
“With her first book. . . [Janelle Monáe] proves that she can continue being just as electric with the written word, even when it’s not set to a beat. . . The characters in this book are a glorious representation and celebration of a spectrum of sexuality and gender, each written with pure empathy and not a whiff of tokenism.”
— Tor.com
“Celebrity writing projects can be an iffy prospect. Writing is a particular craft, one that doesn’t necessarily translate from acting or songwriting, and the results can sometimes feel less like an act of creativity and more like a vanity project. That is absolutely not the case with The Memory Librarian. Monáe and her contributors – Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, Eve L. Ewing, Yohanca Delgado, and Sheree Renée Thomas – have produced a vivid, visceral text with as much of a hook as the album the stories were inspired by.”
— Locus
"The Memory Librarian is full of memorable and believable characters struggling valiantly against forces of oppression. It confirms Monáe’s incredible power of imagination and creativity whatever medium she’s working in, and the ability and talent of her co-writers in bringing her vision alive on the page." — Fantasy Hive
About the Author
JANELLE MONÁE is widely celebrated as an American singer/songwriter, actress, producer, fashion icon, and futurist whose globally successful career spans over a decade. With her highly theatrical and stylized concept albums, she has garnered eight Grammy nominations and has developed her own label imprint, Wondaland Arts Society. Monáe has also earned great success as an actor, starring in critically acclaimed films including Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Harriet, The Glorias, and the 2020 horror film Antebellum. She will star in the highly anticipated sequel Knives Out 2. The Memory Librarian is her debut book.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Voyager (April 19, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0063070871
- ISBN-13 : 978-0063070875
- Item Weight : 1.08 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #378,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #91 in Black & African American Science Fiction (Books)
- #1,277 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #4,364 in Short Stories Anthologies
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Sheree Renée Thomas is a NAACP Image Award Nominee and a New York Times-bestselling, award-winning editor, poet, and the author of three short fiction and multigenre collections, Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, May 2020), Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press, 2016, Publishers’ Weekly Starred Review), Shotgun Lullabies: Stories & Poems (Aqueduct Press, 2011), and Marvel's Black Panther: Panther's Rage novel (Titan Books, October 11, 2022). Her work is inspired by music, mythology, natural science, and the genius of the Mississippi Delta. She is the editor of the groundbreaking anthologies, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000, Warner Aspect/Hachette) and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004, Warner Aspect/Hachette), the first to introduce W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction, which earned the 2001 and 2005 World Fantasy Awards for Year's Best Anthology, making her also the first Black author to win the award since its inception in 1975.
Sheree is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949. She also edited for Random House and for magazines like Apex, Strange Horizons, and is the Associate Editor of the historic Black Arts Movement literary journal, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, founded in 1975 by Alvin Aubert. As a fiction writer and poet, her work has been supported with fellowships and residencies from Smith College as the Lucille Geier-Lakes Writer-in-Residence, the Cave Canem Foundation, Bread Loaf Environmental, the Millay Colony of Arts, VCCA, the Wallace Foundation, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, ArtsMemphis, and others. Widely anthologized, her work also appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy edited by Anne and Jeff VanderMeer, in several volumes of the Year’s Best anthologies, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, the Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, the Rhysling Awards, the Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction, volume 1, and in The New York Times. Sheree was honored as a 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist for her contributions to the genre and served as a Special Guest and a co-host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony in Washington, DC with Andrea Hairston. Thomas also co-curated Carnegie Hall’s 2022 Afrofuturism Festival and served as a narrative writer and consultant on Sony PlayStation and Daimler AG/Mercedes Benz’s futurist video game, Dreams: Imagine Futures whose characters, Eshe, and the AI, Kody are based on her work.
A 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, 2022 World Fantasy Award Finalist, 2022 Ember Award Finalist, 2022 Locus Award Finalist, Ignyte Award Finalist, she is the winner of the 2022 Darrell Award for Year’s Best Novelette (“Madame & the Map: A Journey in Five Movements’ in Nine Bar Blues) and the Dal Colger Memorial Hall of Fame Award. Sheree is a collaborator with Janelle Monáe on "Timebox Altar(ed)" in the New York Times bestselling collection, The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Harper Voyager, April 18, 2022), and a co-editor of Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight (Tordotcom, November 15, 2022) and Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue with Pan Morigan and Troy L. Wiggins (Third Man Books, January 18, 2022).
JANELLE MONÁE is widely celebrated as an American singer/songwriter, actress, producer, fashion icon, and futurist whose globally successful career spans over a decade. With her highly theatrical and stylized concept albums, she has garnered eight Grammy nominations and has developed her own label imprint, Wondaland Arts Society. Monáe has also earned great success as an actor, starring in critically acclaimed films including Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Harriet, The Glorias, and the 2020 horror film Antebellum. She will star in the highly anticipated sequel Knives Out 2. The Memory Librarian is her debut book.
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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.
There's a place for us, the bullied, the hurt, the "never enoughs". The different.
If you listened to any of Mx. Janelle's music, this book is for you.
My heart is whole because I'm not alone.
If you like page turners, you're in for a treat. ☺
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2022
There's a place for us, the bullied, the hurt, the "never enoughs". The different.
If you listened to any of Mx. Janelle's music, this book is for you.
My heart is whole because I'm not alone.
If you like page turners, you're in for a treat. ☺
I'm giving 3 stars because the book came in excellent condition.
Book Review:
Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't this. To be fair, I'm not super into Sci-Fi, but I had to read this book for my Book Club. The book is broken up into multiple stories all surrounding the same theme and time frame. You definitely have to get your brain ready because it's not an "easy" read. Frustrating at times to understand what's going on with the pronouns being used in some of the stories. Very progressive book highliting the disparities in society for female minorities in the LGBTQ+ community. Too much of the same story over and over for me. The girls at the book club had mixed reviews. Some say they were extremely exhausted reading this book. (It was definitely a chore to get through!) I will say this though! We definitely had a very lively discussion with differing view points in book club, so I guess the book/author did what it was supposed to. I just wish there was more diversity with the characters and not so complicated I had to stop every few sentences to look up a word.