Mariame Kaba says, "Hope is a discipline."
This slim collection of nine short stories from Crossed Genres Publications is both timely and hopeful. The stories are quite different from one another but coalesce nicely around the goal of the book, which is to address the real-world resurgence of fascism by "exploring the many and varied ways people can fight back."
My favorites:
R. K. Kalaw's "3.4 oz:" crossing borders under the oppressive eye of a totalitarian state that looks a lot like US Customs and Border Patrol in 2018 (with slightly better tech) is easier when you can literally bottle the emotions that raise suspicion. Likes: complicated family relationships, anger
Tiffany E. Wilson's "Meet Me at State Sponsored Movie Night:" New York City-esque youths disrupt the stream of state propaganda and avoid the booted heel of an urban police force. Likes: propaganda in the form of cartoons so badly made you have to wonder if the cartoonists are members of the resistance, those meddling kids
Izzy Wasserstein's "Pelecanimimus and the Battle for Mosquito Ridge:" In Spain in the 1930s, an international crew of anarchists and communists battle fascists in an attempt to stem the rising tide of rightwing authoritarianism sweeping Europe, and one soldier befriends refugees from another time. Likes: the epistolary style, gay soldiers in love, raptors with feathers
Hope is a discipline; it's something you can do on purpose. The writers who contributed to this book are doing hope, on purpose, and although I didn't always feel like these stories found the answer to the question of how to defeat fascism, I was profoundly grateful to read and feel like part of a community that is trying to find that answer.
n.b. I got this book via supporting the Kickstarter at the 'get a paperback copy' level, which was (I think) $10.