A review by octavia_cade
Ancient, Ancient: Short Fiction by Kiini Ibura Salaam, Kiini Ibura Salaam

5.0

What a wonderful collection of fiction! And though there's a wide range in the stories, most are linked by - as the introduction states - a focus on sensuality that's very welcome in genre fiction. I liked all the stories, but the stand-outs for me were "Desire", which I actually read in an anthology a few weeks back; "Pod Rendezvous", which creates an almost hive-like sense of alien community without being the least bit insectile; and the absolute best, "Rosamojo", which is going on my list of favourite shorts ever, about a girl who kills her sexually abusive father and has to grapple with issues of forgiveness and hurt when his ghost comes along to, among other things, apologise for his actions. It's short and punchy and that mix of sad-angry that turns up sometimes. It's fantastic.

It's all just a really well put together collection. There's a little sort of sub-series of stories in there, of alien creatures who come to Earth to feed on humans and be seduced by them, and how Salaam uses language, in these stories particularly, is just so interesting. Language, of course, is a way of defining (and distancing) the foreign, and simultaneously making connections with that foreign, and how it's used here to echo the themes of alienation and coming together is so clever. The whole book's just so inventive and imaginative, I'm really glad I've got my own copy.