In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated novella “The City Born Great”, a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Content:
- The Ones Who Stay and Fight (2018)
- The City Born Great (2016)
- Red Dirt Witch (2016)
- L'Alchimista (2004)
- The Effluent Engine (2011)
- Cloud Dragon Skies (2005)
- The Trojan Girl (2011)
- Valedictorian (2012)
- The Storyteller's Replacement (2016)
- The Brides of Heaven (2007)
- The Evaluators (2017)
- Walking Awake (2014)
- The Elevator Dancer (2016)
- Cuisine des Mémoires (2016)
- Stone Hunger (2014)
- On the Banks of the River Lex (2010)
- The Narcomancer (2007)
- Henosis (2017)
- Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows (2004)
- The You Train (2007)
- Non-Zero Probabilities (2009)
- Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters (2010)