QTPOC in Sci-Fi and Fantasy is a monthly book club exploring race, sexuality and gender in Fantasy and Sci-fi settings. This month’s choice is by a local author, and I’m very excited to share it with you. This is a public book club that’s open to allies. This month’s choice is:
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EVERFAIR BY NISI SHAWL

An alternate history / historical fantasy / steampunk novel set in the Belgian Congo, from noted short story writer Nisi Shawl.

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.
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Support Local! If you order your copy through Elliott Bay Book Company, they will offer you 20% off for being in our club.
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ACCESSIBILITY INFO: The Gay City meeting room is down a flight of 11 stairs. A wheelchair lift is available if requested early.
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To receive further invites to our monthly book club please join us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/QTPOCBookClub/