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I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, but I keep remembering the part about how the author did not realize that Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrise Cullors was an artist. Ebonyjanice explains that so many of us become known for our activism--our role in interrupting white supremacy--that our actually work, our creative work becomes backgrounded: "We are being known for our resistance and not for our living."

She also goes on to quote her own tweet, "I just thought about the fact that I may never fully self-actualize because I do not know what it looks like to dream of my highest self outside of white supremacist systems. Which is to say, everything I create is created from resistance rather than from a place of just being."

"I wanted to consider what my highest imagination of myself revealed without white supremacy as the filter through which I create, build and exist. I realized that in order for me to be able to get to the work my soul must have, I needed either a new vision or a clearer vision of how to do justice work that didn't cost me my body. This, intuitively, called me to dreaming as a deep, intentional part of my practice."

Just your average socialist vampire novella about climate change, featuring a comfortably cynical leftist podcaster discovering his own values and what he'll do for them.

(also, lots of drugs and a shitty narrator who thinks he's a nice guy to trans women)

I will go on the record and say that I generally dislike vampire stories. I watched Sinners recently with some friends and I hated how much it was like "hey it turns out it's vampires, thank goodness everybody has already internalized vampire tropes so we can immediately deal with them". Leaning on tropes is such a lost worldbuilding opportunity.

Needless to say, I was delighted about the ideas in this book around vampires being naturally long term thinkers, concerned about how the mass of humanity was treating the planet. But also about being vampires. In some ways, this reminds me of the setup of the Philip K. Dick short story Human Is, where a kind alien replaces an abusive husband and the wife knowingly pretends that he is still her husband. But, this story is also a larger authoritarian dream, of wishing powerful beings will show up and parentally take care of the irresponsible children of humanity who can't be bothered to care for each other or the planet.

It's very much a book of the current moment, and despite everything ends with some much needed, unexpected optimism about possibility and change.