FUN, RASQUACHE, AND EL PORVENIR, ¡YA!

So why should you donate to the Kickstarter for El Porvenir, ¡Ya!, the first Chicano Science Fiction Anthology? Does the world need such a thing? What’s in it for you?

Might as well ask me why I’ve devoted so much of my life to writing the crazy stuff that earned me the title of Father of Chicano Science Fiction. I could tell you that I want to change the world and/or make Great Art. I’ve said such things when the audience is right, but now—or should I say ¡Ya!—it’s time to be honest. 

I do it because it’s fun. Writing this stuff, publishing it, having it published, having it read, and hearing that people enjoy it, makes me feel better that I should be allowed to.

There’s something about the volatile reactions that happen when I plug sci-fi into my Chicano imagination. We call it rasquache, the wild and wonderful magic on how Chicanos put things together that isn’t “normal” and create our own worlds. It isn’t something I aspired to, it’s what I am.

And having read El Porvenir, ¡Ya! in advance, so I could write the preface, I’m happy to report the anthology is brimming over with astounding sci-fi rasquache. There’s near future extrapolations,rip-snortin’ space opera, time travel (we are all about history, which is where the future begins), post-apocalypses, alternate universes, and things that don’t fit into the usual categories. 

Not fitting in to the usual categories is a Chicano thing, but you don’t have to be one to enjoy this book.

So, please, donate what you can, and spread the word.

And who knows, it might even change the world, make Great Art, and a rasquache future.