If the chapters where Womack connects Sun Ra’s cosmic mythmaking and Janelle Monáe’s Cindi Mayweather to lived history thrilled you, you’ll love how The Deep grounds speculative wonder in cultural memory. Drawing from clipping.’s song about the descendants of enslaved Africans who live under the sea, Solomon explores how a community remembers, forgets, and heals—much like the way Womack traces Afrofuturism’s remix of history into future-making.

Womack highlights Butler’s ethos—change as God, vision as survival—when she discusses Afrofuturism’s philosophies. In Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina forges Earthseed in a collapsing America, turning a personal creed into a communal future. If you were drawn to Womack’s discussion of Butler’s probing questions and ethical frameworks, this novel gives you that philosophy in action.

Womack celebrates a tapestry of creators—from Parliament-Funkadelic’s Mothership to films like Pumzi and the global currents shaping Afrofuturism. New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl, gathers a wide array of writers (including up-and-coming and award-winning voices) to showcase many angles of identity, culture, and futurity. If you loved Womack’s panoramic spotlight on many creators, this anthology delivers that same breadth in story form.

Womack ties aesthetics to praxis—think of how she moves from Sun Ra and Delany to contemporary activism and community tech. Octavia’s Brood takes that bridge seriously: stories crafted by organizers and thinkers ask how movements dream new worlds. If the way Womack connected cultural production to real-world change energized you, these tales transform that intellectual spark into narrative experiments.

When Womack revels in Wakanda’s aspirational technology and Monáe’s emancipatory android narratives, she’s pointing to futures that heal. In Binti, a Himba mathematician leaves home for an interstellar university and brokers peace between humans and the Meduse through empathy and ingenuity. If you cherished the hopeful throughline in Womack’s tour—from music to film to lit—Binti’s journey embodies that bright, bridge-building optimism.