anOther Nemesis Tour

Lily, 7 months ago

anOther Nemesis

by Ai Jiang, Angela Yuriko Smith, Eugen Bacon & Maxwell I. Gold

This dark and thought-provoking poetry collection is co-authored by four multi-award winning authors and poets, Ai Jiang, Angela Yuriko Smith, Eugen Bacon and Maxwell I. Gold.

anOther Nemesis unravels sinister speculative poems themed The Colonizers, Primal Sources, Nameless Others and Crooked Ontologies. It reconnoitres words as weapons, reshaping to the unworldly, casting transfigurations of that which was never meant to be changed, and featuring poignant behind-the-poems by each poet.

The extraordinary assemblage interrogates the ways cultures, language, information, and the lack thereof are used as means of control; how voices will always rise against systems that rewrite identity, suppress truth, and silence dissent; the distinctions of purity and diffusion and the infinite number of fates upon which our existence is simultaneously contingent; how Ubiquitous indifference can sometimes be the cruelest villain of them all… and more!

5 out of 5 fairies

If I could rate this collection higher, I absolutely would. If you enjoy dark, evocative poetry, then you need to grab this collection. I loved the journey you take as you read your way through all four sections. Each poet contributes to each section, so you get a variety of styles and vibes, with an overarching dark theme. Although they’re poems, you can see each almost mini-story unfold as you read. While you can read this easily in one sitting, I took my time to absorb each poem before moving on to the next. If you like to have music while you read, I’d recommend a dark and moody instrumental mix to accompany this collection. Honestly, cannot recommend enough. These are poems that linger long after you’ve finished reading them!

Calibration by Eugen Bacon

worlding the merpeople insists on fundamental descaling and tail amputation without anesthetics to ascertain if the language of crying harbors an ideology of resistance
because the truth of a creature manifests itself
when its discomfort threshold
is breached.

A Home You Don’t Remember by Ai Jiang

How to Miss
You’re eager to sip sweet nectar
from deep chasms and explore
the long winding valleys of the place
of your birth. But how do you miss
a place that seems like only a passing
portrait because it has been so long
since your physical body roamed
across its soils, stepped into its marrows,
uprooted
from its grooves, troughs, and furrows?
a place renamed, unnamed, renamed,
until it has forgotten what it had been
before the touch of human hands,
untrodden by human footprints,
now holding memories not its own.

Sun Wukong by Angela Yuriko Smith

The Monkey King—Sun Wukong, mischief embodied, irrepressible rebel birthed from stone to defy gods. His voice taunted heaven and teased immortals, arrogance wrapped in humor, wisdom hidden behind mirth. He defied limits, another snatcher of forbidden fruit, he grifted peaches of immortality and rewrote destinies with defiance. His laughter shook the celestial palaces; his clever tongue twisted divine decree into chaos, leaving order trembling in his wake.

Today, the Monkey King swings through digital jungles, flipping conventions and mocking algorithms with anarchic glee. He leaps across viral trends, prank videos, and meme culture, rebellious against the gravity of expectation. Sun Wukong is the chaos in the comment section, the unpredictable tweet that shatters expectations, the influencer who refuses to follow the script. He challenges censorship, mocks digital vanity, and playfully dismantles the serious facade of modern life, reminding humanity that freedom lies in laughter and that chaos is is needed for creation.

Defy all order—
Creation is subversive.
Freedom is laughing.

The Wall of Someday by Maxwell I. Gold

To Hope there was more,
over death,
over stars
after the Earth was ash
and there was no more less than,
no more walls;
in Hope to see towers that might stretch beyond limitation
outside my window or a house trapped
on the edge of a someday
I’d never know or to see what lay beyond the thick walls of night,
To Hope each time a great storm gathered,
cackling with heavy thunder and light,
I’d never know the words,
‘ne’er to pass the wall’

And to hope one day I might cross the threshold,
where the Gates of Tomorrow swung wide
and no longer the dark cruelties of today,
beat ceaselessly against my brain;
though with each passing night,
the storm’s call grew ever deeper,
‘never to pass the wall
and hope there was more,
over death,
over stars
after the Earth was ash
and there was no more less than,
no more walls.

Amazon | Bookshop | Meerkat Press
Goodreads | Storygraph

Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist from Changle, Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop’s 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of A Palace Near the Wind, Linghun, and I AM AI. Find her at www.aijiang.ca.

Angela Yuriko Smith, former president of the HWA and publisher of Space and Time magazine, is the proud recipient of multiple awards, including two Bram Stokers. As a Publishing Coach, she helps writers search less and submit more with her weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.

Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She is a Solstice, British Fantasy, Ignyte, Locus and Foreword Indies Award winner. She’s also a twice World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and a finalist in the Philip K. Dick Awards and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and was also announced in the honor list for “doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction.” Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a “sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work.” Visit her at eugenbacon.com.

Maxwell I. Gold is a Jewish-American cosmic horror poet and editor, with an extensive body of work comprising over 300 poems since 2017. His writings have earned a place alongside many literary luminaries in the speculative fiction genre. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Maxwell’s work has been recognized with multiple nominations including the Eric Hoffer Award, Pushcart Prize, and Bram Stoker Awards. Find him and his work at www.thewellsoftheweird.com.