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     Ladies and Gentlemen I wish I could credit the preceding words to myself, but those words belong solely to John M. Faucette Jr., they refer to his short story anthology Black Science Fiction: Fantasy and Horror. And I ask you who would not want to read this anthology with a blurb like that?! Intriguing and exciting, Faucette promises thrills, chills, and erotic escapades, and instead left one disappointed reviewer who is just wondering why this guy is trying to write the wrong kind of fiction, he belongs in the advertising field.

     First of all I would like to explain that I understand Faucette’s desire to want to write fiction that reflects people of color. Let us face the honest truth, if the people of the world believe in the American motion pictures and literature of the genre, well, there is no one in the future who is not of European descent. Despite the fact that most of the people on earth are some shade of brown. But the way Faucette approaches his stories is just weak to say the most. Most of his stories are told in the first person, and usually have some poor references of erotica. A good example of this kind of story is the very first story Alien Peril, which features Faucette’s recurring super hero Ian MacAllister, a Wormhole Explorer, born of a test tube, after the destruction of Earth, is stranded on a planet millions of light years from Earth and all he can observe when approached by the planet’s life forms is that their women have shaved vaginas.

     Yet, there are some hints of writing ability scattered sparsely throughout the anthology. The Sperm Collector provides an interesting take on relationships between men and women, who have now resorted to bearing children completely without men by stealing the crème de la crème of sperm. Rogue agents are paid millions to gather this precious sperm since sperm banks cannot be trusted. While God Damn You Cinderella! Speaks more to the hearts of men who have fallen in love with women they cannot have. Both provide a solid story theme, plot, and characters you can feel for. But I must note it takes pages and pages of poorly written material to find little gems like these stories.

     British mystery author, G.K. Chesterton once said “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author”. In sum, Faucette needs an editor, additional writing classes and tough skin. Despite his protests and anger that his publishing is due to his skin color (which for many authors I believe is true), I do believe that the reason he has not been as successful as he would like has to do with his poor writing ability and lack of original ideas. It is clear from his writing he was a big fan of the original Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and many a Ray Bradbury shows. And at $20.95 a book I don’t want to read a poor adaptation of the classics.

     Send your comments and or questions about this article to JenniferJ.com.

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