LeVar Burton Reads · LeVar Burton and Stitcher

Immersive Remix: "The Takeback Tango" by Rebecca Roanhorse

November 21, 2023·42 min·2 clips

LeVar Burton says he loves rooting for the heisters when they actually pull it off.

Happy Thanksgiving week opens the door, then the story walks straight through it. LeVar Burton pauses to offer an immersive remix of Rebecca Roanhorse's The Take Back Tango, a space heist with a sharp little grin. He loves the heisters, and the intro makes that pleasure easy to hear without sanding off what comes next. A princess moves through security, trying to sound rich, bored, and harmless while her body threatens to betray her. The danger nearly snaps shut. The guard gets only her title wrong, not her plan, and the relief lands with a dry sting. Inside, the wonder does not last. The exhibit holds jewels and crafted adornments from her own civilization, beautiful things made awful by the glass around them. The plaques are colder still. Their neat holographic labels turn sacred objects into categories, then masks, rattles, and remains into stock. Nausea gives way to rage. The sleek caper becomes a promise to bring stolen pieces back to what remains of her people. A boy interrupts her just as her grief is too large for the disguise. She calls it barbaric, and that slip tells the whole truth. This is treasure, yes, but it is also ancestry. Burton keeps the reading steady, which makes it hurt more.

As heard by us

An outer-space heist where the score matters, but the stolen history matters more.

Rebecca Roanhorse turns an outer-space heist into something sharper and more intimate: a story that moves through a museum of stolen treasures while holding onto the anger beneath the job.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a heist story set in outer space.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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