Futurist Fiction & Fantasy: The Racial Establishment

Abstract

Futurist fiction and fantasy (hereinafter referred to as "FFF") encompasses a variety of subgenres: hard science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, sword-and-sorcerer fantasy, and cyberpunk. 1 Unfortunately, even though nearly a century has expired since the advent of FFF, Richard Pryor's observation and a call for action is still viable. Despite the growing number of Black FFF writers, the proportion of Black FFF authors to White FFF authors is dismal. This disproportion means that Black FFF authors have a limited presence in the industry. Thus, although Black FFF authors have produced novels falling into the last four FFF categories enumerated above, they have not produced a single hard-science fiction (hereinafter referred to as "hard SF") novel, although Samuel R. Delany, Jr., and Octavia E. Butler have incorporated hard science into their speculative fiction. 2