agic, in particular that form of magic that has its roots in African and Caribbean cultures, provides the inspiration for the authors in Mojo: Conjure Stories, an anthology of original stories edited by Nalo Hopkinson. Spiritualist Luisah Teish contributes a short and evocative introduction; in her editor's note, Hopkinson describes magic as "an ultimate act of presumption" and, in the case of that form of magic known as "mojo," as an attempt by enslaved people to control their lives.
From this starting point, the writers included in this book follow a variety of paths. In "Heartspace" by Steven Barnes, a man estranged from his neglectful and ailing father visits him and finds an unexpectedly kind and regretful man under the control of his mysterious current wife. Neil Gaiman's "Bitter Grounds" combines the lore of zombies with a psychologically adrift narrator and a conference of anthropologists in New Orleans, while Barbara Hambly, in "The Horseman and the Morning Star," tells a story of slaves on a Louisiana plantation who must summon their own magic in order to fight the devil their master is attempting to invoke.
A drag queen and a voodoo priestess (in Barth Anderson's "Lark Till Dawn, Princess"), a mother calling back her dead child (in "Fate" by Jenise Aminoff), an unusually long-lived former slave who encounters a shape-changer during their passage to the New World (in Gregory Frost's "The Prowl"), a Florida convict who tries to conjure up an escape from prison with the help of an old skull and a borrowed talent for singing (in "Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull" by Andy Duncan), and a little girl desperate enough to sacrifice her pet cat if that will move her father to try to save her brother's life (in "Trial Day" by Tananarive Due), are just a few of the other characters that populate these 19 stories.
Stories that put a spell on you
Appropriately, for an anthology devoted to the theme of personal magic, each tale in Mojo: Conjure Stories reveals a distinctive authorial personality and voice. By choosing a diverse group of talents, Nalo Hopkinson has avoided one pitfall of the theme anthology, namely too many stories that are similar in tone. Readers will find plenty of horror here, notably in A.M. Dellamonica's suitably grisly "Cooking Creole" and with Gerard Houarner's zombie narrator in "She'd Make a Dead Man Crawl," but also humor, in the inimitable Andy Duncan's "Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull," and the lively exaggerations of a tall tale in Sheree Renee Thomas's "How Sukie Cross De Big Wata." These are stories best read at intervals, the better to savor the flavor of each, but some readers may not be able to stop themselves from gulping down several stories at one sitting.
Every story here is well worth reading, a tribute to Hopkinson's skill as an editor. The better-known writers—Duncan, Frost, Hambly, Barnes, Due and Gaiman—contribute deeply felt, elegantly written, atmospheric stories that will reward their many fans, but one of the particular pleasures of this anthology is discovering eloquent new or unfamiliar voices. "Death's Dreadlocks" by Tobias S. Buckell is a moving story set in a nameless war-torn African country; Jarla Tangh's "The Skinned" effectively uses horror to evoke the alienation and fear of a refugee newly settled in America, Marcia Douglas contributes a fine prose poem in "Notes From a Writer's Book of Cures and Spells," and Eliot Fintushel's Moebius strip of a story, "White Man's Trick," with its mix of disorientation and acutely observed details, is a twistedly brilliant tale.
This is an anthology that casts a strong spell as the writers here work their magic. As Luisah Teish concludes in her introduction: "Come now. Turn the page. I dare you!" Her dare is worth taking.
