One cool thing about being a psychopomp is the ability to lead people to places they haven’t been before. Sure sure, the main place we lead people is the Realm of the Dead, yeah yeah, but we can take an occasional detour every so often.
Today’s detour takes us into AFTERLIVES: The Year’s Best Death Fiction cover reveal. But…that sounds pretty Realm of the Dead, you are thinking. And you aren’t wrong, but look—not everything about death is grim. Sometimes, the Realm has beautiful things to show us. The end of suffering, the paths our ancestors took, the fragment of them that still lives within us.
And this is new! You haven’t seen this before, so here we are.
Curator Sheree Renée Thomas made you a beautiful table of contents, so we aimed to put as beautiful a cover on the book—and with her guidance, we think we achieved it. Nephthys, Egyptian goddess of the dead, has come to oversee this collection of fiction, rendered in hues of violet and ebony by Jeszika Le Vye.
Gaze upon her!
Stunning.
Let’s take another look at that TOC, too:
I. Breathing Beyond the Veil ( Death’s new robes…)
(These opening stories plunge us into surprising and startling transformations, explore the visceral, immediate shifts that redefine existence in new forms beyond what we think of as conventional, everyday life.)
“How To Get Away with Living” by Chisom Umeh (Sci-Fi, Nigerian, Ethics, Bureaucracy/Hustling Beyond the Grave?/Resurrection)
“Drinking Dead Brazilians” by Lia Mulcahy (Queer, Magical Realism, Afterlife, Liberation)
“Eyes Of My Brother” by Robert Luke Wilkins (African/Indigenous Inspired Folk Horror, Body Horror, Grief, Spiritual)
II. Threads of Memory (who are we here and beyond life, the enduring consciousness and challenge of being, existence)
(These stories explore how our consciousness, personal and cultural memory, and ancestral bonds kind of haunt of us, persist, shaping our identities and influencing the living from beyond the spectral veil)
“Labyrinth” by Beth Goder (Literary Speculative, Psychological Haunting, History, Memory)
“The Texture of Memory, of Light” by Samara Auman (Dystopian Sci-Fi, Memory, Grief, Social Commentary)
“A Proper Vessel, A Perfect House” by Ash Huang (Ancestral Dark Fantasy, Cultural, Possession)
“Not all your bones are yours” by Plangdi Neple (Afrofuturist Folk Horror, Body Horror, Atonement)
“Rooms of Our Own” by Toshiya Kamei (Digital Afterlife Sci-Fi, Grief, Ethics)
“The Lark Ascending” by Eleanna Castroianni (AI Sci-Fi, Memory, Consciousness, Legacy)
III. Beyond the Sacred Veil (stories that explore the rituals, ideas around justice, and the great grand design of life/death/afterlife)
(These stories are set in more diverse cultural spaces and offer other understandings of death, explore sacred rituals, engage with the idea of spiritual justice, and/or explore how choices and actions may live on, requiring restoration or resolutions beyond even the grave.)
“Unquiet on The Eastern Front” by Wole Talabi (Historical Folk Horror, African, Colonialism)
“Raising an Ancestor” by Kay Mabasa (Cultural Fantasy, African, Ancestral Connection)
“When Rain Clouds Gather” by Rutendo Chidzodzo (Magical Realism, African, Justice)
“Onitsha Main, Ochanja, The Twins, Nkpor, and the Shadows of Shoprite” by Somto Ihezue (Magical Realism, Nigerian, Allegory)
“The Empty Throne” by Benjamin C. Kinney (Theological Speculative, Jewish-themed, Agency)
“The Colour of the Ninth Wave” by Katie McIvor (Historical Dark Fantasy, Irish Mythology, Justice)
IV. Celestial Dust & Mortal Wills (stories that confront the infinite, the end…)
(This section of stories confronts some of the broader cosmic implications of death, and/or poignant encounters with cosmic forces beyond our comprehension.)
“Mister Yellow” by Christina Bauer (Cosmic Sci-Fi, Ethical, Reality, Destruction)
“At the End of Everything” by Spencer Nitkey (Existential Sci-Fi, Cosmic Decay, Oblivion)
“The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl” by Nika Murphy (Historical Supernatural, Ukrainian, Trauma, Healing)
“Twice Every Day Returning” by Sonya Taaffe (Lyrical Magical Realism, Queer, Cultural, Grief)
V. The Heart’s Persistent Song (works that focus on purpose, acceptance, and those final, lasting echoes of life)
(These final stories anchor the collection with themes of finding new purpose in the afterlife, achieving a meaningful, emotional acceptance of loss, and/or the enduring, transformative nature of love and unique identity.)
“Leak” by Maria Hossain (Revenant Horror, Environmental Justice, Social Commentary)
“A Tapestry of Dreams” by Victor Forna (Magical Realism, African, Healing, Choice)
“The Eleventh Three-Quarters Hour” by Leslie What (Magical Realism, Grief, Bureaucracy, Haunting)
“What It Means to Drift” by Rajeev Prasad (Sci-Fi, Identity, Emotion, AI, Grief, Purpose, Self-acceptance)
“A Late Appearance by Death” by Victoria Brun (Literary Speculative, Compassion, Purpose)
“Fat Kids” by Alex Jennings (Magical Realism, African Diaspora, Identity, Self-acceptance)
The best news? Join our Patreon at any paid level, and get the AFTERLIVES: The Year’s Best Death Fiction 2024 ebook free. The book will be delivered to all patrons in November.
