How to hold a revolution

[bibliogramma]

The Moons of Palmares, Zainab Amadahy

Amadahy's The Moons of Palmares is a relatively short and straightforward story about resisting opression. Colony planet run by imperialist capitalist forces for the benefit of the elites back home and to the detriment of the people actually doing the hard work out here in space. Civil unrest ensues. A new and naive military officer who is a basically alright person but who just doesn't believe that his government, his people could be doing unjust things is assigned and almost immediately begins to see that things are not quite as they should be.

There are more nuances than this - not all of the military and government people are bad, not all of the rebels are good, and there's plenty of thought about how to hold an ethical revolution.

What makes it particularly interesting is that the author explicitly introduces race into the the story, and is herself of mixed Black and First Nations heritage, which makes for an interesting metacommentary on how to rebel against people who want to exploit you, your land and its resources for their own ends.

I enjoyed it. Amadahy is an activist in the areas of women's and aboriginal people's issues, and appears not to have written any other fiction, speculative or not. A part of me wishes she had, because I'd like to have seen where her ideas, perspectives and talent would have taken her next.