Mojorhythm
MOJORHYTHM is book one of the the three book The Root and Sky Series of short stories.
"The lyrical gifts of Thomas invokes the rhythms of African-American ring shouts and the dense, humid atmosphere of the American South. " ―Publishers Weekly
The award-winning Sheree Renée Thomas, author of Nine Bar Blues, returns with a new collection steeped in Hoodoo, fantasy, magic myths, and lore.
Meet a spacefaring prophet of the future digging in the crates of earth's past. Step into a Memphis salon where coiled braids hold ancient power, and stylists conjure Rootwork against forces both seen and unseen. Witness a future where the state claims bodies, and women forge a rebellion of fire and spirit from the land's deep memory. Follow a stylish African dandy spy navigating a world woven with intrigue and hidden currents of power. and enter a legendary diner whose culinary wares change fates.
These tales resonate with the magic and mystery, the deep rhythms and blues of the soul's passage through life and beyond. Short stories that invite readers into realms where ancient traditions and futuristic visions collide in a vibrant chorus of magic, music, and adventure, where the raw pulse of the natural world intertwines with the hum of tomorrow's technology, revealing the boundless wonders of existence.
This is a multigenre brew, strange and wondrous, exploring the supernatural currents of music, history, and culture, Hoodoo as an ancient modern spiritual force and living folklore, the exquisite whimsy and profound horrors found in existence, and the boundless territories of the impossible.
Author:
Sheree Renée Thomas
Photo: Brad Vest
Sheree Renée Thomas is a twice Hugo Award nominated, Locus Award, and three-time World Fantasy Award-winner. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. The author of four collections, including Mojorhythm, Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, and Shotgun Lullabies. Sheree is a co-editor for Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue, and is the editor of the groundbreaking Dark Matter speculative fiction anthologies that first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction and explored 165+ years of Black Speculative Fiction. In 2023 she was honored with the Octavia E. Butler Award. She is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction and associate editor of Obsidian. Her collaboration with artist Janelle Monáe on the “Timebox Altar(ed)” novelet appears in The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer (HarperVoyager), a New York Times bestseller. Sheree is a Marvel writer, including the novel, Black Panther: Panther’s Rage (Titan/Penguin Random House), an adaptation of Don McGregor’s legendary graphic novel, and her comic book debut, “The World Is Not Ready” featuring the Black Panther and Storm appears in Marvel Voices: Legends #1 (January 31, 2024). She lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee near a mighty river and a pyramid.
