Chroma by Camille Thomas
Yara, a young black woman, is focused on surviving in her neighborhood of collapsed bridges, singed ground and crowded government food pantries, in a former suburb of a major city. Although dedicated to supporting her family, Yara keeps her true feelings and ancestral aches close.
Soon after turning nineteen, Yara finds out she won the annual lottery for NASA’s public program to work on America’s colony on Mars. She uses smithing, among other talents handed down over generations, as one of the first trainees in a new program to restore e-waste. After starting the program, she is separated from the other space cadets when she shows signs of a mysterious condition.
Upon rejoining the group for launch, she meets latecomer Marc, who helps Yara discover how to use the ethereal plane of the galaxy to transform her curse into a gift. She explores the glass domes, high speed motorbikes and flourishing neon backdrop of Chroma, the city where NASA’s Mars headquarters is located. Just as Yara begins to find there is more to egalitarian politics in Chroma than it seems, someone reveals her condition to powerful space barons, captains of the private sector.
Chroma is an afrofuturist novel following the legacy of Octavia Butler’ Parable of the Sower, Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, and Nicky Draden’s The Prey of Gods that warn of bringing the underbelly of the present into the future. Chroma continues this theme and imagines the intersection of technology, magical girls, urban biospheres and transmuting racialized generational trauma.
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