Co-winner of the 2012 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
a Locus recommended book
Acclaimed author and critic Nalo Hopkinson writes, “Salaam
treats words like the seductive weapons they are. She wields them to weave
fierce, gorgeous stories that stroke your sensibilities, challenge your
preconceptions, and leave you breathless with their beauty.” Indeed,
Ms. Salaam's stories are so permeated with sensuality that in her
introduction to Ancient, Ancient, Nisi Shawl, author of the
award-winning
Filter House, writes, “Sexuality-cum-sensuality is the experiential link
between mind and matter, the vivid and eternal refutation of the alleged
dichotomy between them. This understanding is the foundation of my 2004
pronouncement on the burgeoning sexuality implicit in sf's
Afro-diasporization. It is the core of many African-based philosophies. And
it is the throbbing, glistening heart of Kiini's body of work. This book is
alive. Be not afraid.”
A new voice in the field, Ms. Salaam, as Jack Womack writes, “deserves to
be considered as one of today's most promising contemporary genre
writers. With writing that challenges assumptions on gender, the nature of
fantasy, the uses of myth and much more, she offers the readers stories
that they will not soon forget. [Ancient, Ancient is] a marvelous
introduction to a marvelous writer.”
Advance Praise
"Salaam treats words like the seductive weapons they are. She wields them
to weave fierce, gorgeous stories that stroke your sensibilities, challenge
your preconceptions, and leave you breathless with their beauty."
— Nalo Hopkinson, author of
The New Moon's Arms and The Salt Roads
"Kiini Ibura Salaam's collection of short fiction, Ancient, Ancient,
demonstrates that she deserves to be considered as one of today's most
promising contemporary genre writers. With writing that challenges
assumptions on gender, the nature of fantasy, the uses of myth and much
more, she offers the readers stories that they will not soon forget. A
marvelous introduction to a marvelous writer."
— Jack Womack, author of
Random Acts of Senseless Violence
"Kiini Ibura Salaam is a natural-born storyteller and a gorgeous writer who
chooses her characters and words with the care and skill of a poet. Her
stories are transformative, wise and vivid with the quality of fantasy and
fable. I loved reading this!"
— Sheree Renée Thomas, author of Shotgun
Lullabies: Stories and Poems and editor of the Dark Matter anthologies
"My favorite piece is one of three original to this collection, “Pod
Rendezvous.” A long and entrancing look at the last libertine hours of a
future female who must dedicate her remaining life to selfless nurturing,
it swoops on gossamer contrails from crèche to club, from finger-shoveled
cafeteria food to bars dispensing star juice. It is the book’s final
story. At its end the heroine disappears, a bright spark flying out of
sight, and the story is done but not over, or over but not yet done. The
pull, the sometimes literally visceral attraction of what Kiini does with
words, continues on beyond them."
— Nisi Shawl, author of Filter House, from
her introduction to Ancient, Ancient
Reviews
“Salaam's collection of 10 reprints and 3
original stories introduces readers to alternate
worlds built around magic, sensuality,
sexuality and the search for emotional
comfort, however tenuous. A lusty god
temporarily bestows his sexual spark on
a worn-out and unappreciated young
woman in ‘Desire’. The world of mothlike
aliens who feed on the heated ‘nectar’
of human sexual energies is explored in
three linked tales. A young man’s grandfather
sends him time traveling into danger
as a punishment in ‘Battle Royale,’ while
‘Rosamojo’ is a straightforward revenge
story about a young girl who uses magic
to punish her rapist father. Unearthly
magics frame ‘Ferret,’ an intriguing snippet
about a space colony ship guided by
animal divination, and ‘Marie,’ in which a
pregnant Creole woman is willing to sacrifice
anything to feel at home in New York
City. Salaam’s unusual settings and lonely
characters will call to readers who hunger
for sex, identity, or just a place to belong.”
—Publishers Weekly, March 5 2012
This collection of moving stories interleaves many themes, perhaps the
most effective for me being the alienation of the foreigner....Throughout
the language is stunning, like music become words. I found my own mind
dazzled and my imagination stretched to keep up with the flow of images.
The world as Salaam paints it is full of harsh and beautiful things: she
insists that we must venture into dark places to emerge as who we are meant
to be. The best of her work is imbued with subtle interventions which
ultimately provide the reader with sharply felt revelations, the secrets
within the text that we must each decipher independently and which speak to
each other to reveal a larger project. The stories work from mutual
touchstones: the illustration of sex as an act of power; a visceral
relationship to the human body as a mode of currency as well as a site of
rebellion; and the examination of the struggle to find oneself,
particularly as a woman, in a world that offers so few options. Few writers
pay such focused attention to a specific set of ideas and concerns, and
this accomplished collection provides a vigorous exploration into Salaam's
unique vision.
—Richard Larson, Strange Horizons, Oct 5, 2012
(read the whole review)
The ancient mysteries of life hold in their grasp the power of
seduction. We find seduction, being led away, in a sexual experience, a
sensual touch, the coming of a new life or death, the physical movement of
bodies in a dance, the allure of magic, the call of nature, the possibility
of a new truth or that a truth was a lie, or to experience the life of
another. There is a freedom and danger, a pleasure and pain in seduction,
and Kiini Ibura Salaam compellingly explores them in her collection of
speculative short fiction stories, Ancient Ancient.
—Modern Griots Review, October 11, 2012 (read
the whold review)
