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A review by outcolder
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
3.0
Unpleasant, often disgusting. The near constant scatology might be “transgressive” in Jamaica, or maybe even normal, I have no idea. Do people constantly talk about piss, shit, ejaculate, penises and assholes there? For me it was like a buzzing noise I tried to ignore. I get it, the main character has a nose and so he’s smelling all this yuck all the time. The superpower of being able to track people with your nose comes with the constant smell of yuck, which presumably the Tracker got used to, but do I have to get used to reading about it? Thankfully, as the monstrous violence builds the shit references decrease.
As a fantasy series this is a good start. Unusual monsters, magical creatures and lots of witchcraft. Unreliable narrator, if that’s your thing. A couple familiar tropes get bent or shattered and there’s lots of betrayals and alliances with the baddies. It left me with enough WTF that I might read the second book, already out in paperback.
The main character is a misogynist. He at first seems unaware of it, and then in denial, like “I can’t help it if all the women I meet are evil witches.” It’s cool how this is a theme , and when women and at least one other character confront him about it we get some stuff about unresolved mother issues. He’s also the narrator though, and everyone is so annoying and snappy and so, yeah, be prepared for woman hating. Also, yeah, all the women he meets are evil, there’s one girl who is a ghost and another who ... I don’t want to spoil anything but... yeah... there are no good females in this book.
Africa. We know we’re in Africa. There’s a giant “sand sea” to the north, for one thing. Right from the start there’s the practice of leaving albinos, twins, etc in the bush, there’s genital cutting, and these are important to the first hundred pages. Slavery is also a major theme. Child “brides.” I don’t know, I mean, the effect is kind of imperialist. OK, he’s not writing for white people, he can criticize these things, but I thought it could have been handled in a more sensitive way. The main character is definitely against all of that, but that also adds to the Africa =bad, backward message. I think I would prefer some african SF. Fantasy often has this nostalgia, and I guess the grimdark trend is meant to be critical of that, that LOTR is like Winnie the Pooh thing. There’s also a lot of mixed messages about disability here. We want to save “ball boy” but the boy whose limbs have been eaten is “mercifully “ killed, for example.
Two promising things about the fantasy Africa setting for me: “White Science “ is a branch of sorcery in the book that is especially evil and when we get details it was the roughest stuff in here, had me physically reacting. The whole white science thing has definite Yacoub-NOI vibes. I would like to know if Marlon James got the white science idea from an African saga or legend and if that also informed the NOI. Definitely white science was some of the strongest stuff in here. There is also towards the end the hint of a coming apocalyptic war that sounds like white people from the West in the role of orcs. Of course it won’t be that straight forward and I don’t trust the author to not flip it, see my vague point about an imperialist vibe... but still... a united Africa fighting off the “west” ... I could get with that.
Three stars seems a bit mean for a book that put me through so much, but I am sticking to it.
As a fantasy series this is a good start. Unusual monsters, magical creatures and lots of witchcraft. Unreliable narrator, if that’s your thing. A couple familiar tropes get bent or shattered and there’s lots of betrayals and alliances with the baddies. It left me with enough WTF that I might read the second book, already out in paperback.
The main character is a misogynist. He at first seems unaware of it, and then in denial, like “I can’t help it if all the women I meet are evil witches.” It’s cool how this is a theme , and when women and at least one other character confront him about it we get some stuff about unresolved mother issues. He’s also the narrator though, and everyone is so annoying and snappy and so, yeah, be prepared for woman hating. Also, yeah, all the women he meets are evil, there’s one girl who is a ghost and another who ... I don’t want to spoil anything but... yeah... there are no good females in this book.
Africa. We know we’re in Africa. There’s a giant “sand sea” to the north, for one thing. Right from the start there’s the practice of leaving albinos, twins, etc in the bush, there’s genital cutting, and these are important to the first hundred pages. Slavery is also a major theme. Child “brides.” I don’t know, I mean, the effect is kind of imperialist. OK, he’s not writing for white people, he can criticize these things, but I thought it could have been handled in a more sensitive way. The main character is definitely against all of that, but that also adds to the Africa =bad, backward message. I think I would prefer some african SF. Fantasy often has this nostalgia, and I guess the grimdark trend is meant to be critical of that, that LOTR is like Winnie the Pooh thing. There’s also a lot of mixed messages about disability here. We want to save “ball boy” but the boy whose limbs have been eaten is “mercifully “ killed, for example.
Two promising things about the fantasy Africa setting for me: “White Science “ is a branch of sorcery in the book that is especially evil and when we get details it was the roughest stuff in here, had me physically reacting. The whole white science thing has definite Yacoub-NOI vibes. I would like to know if Marlon James got the white science idea from an African saga or legend and if that also informed the NOI. Definitely white science was some of the strongest stuff in here. There is also towards the end the hint of a coming apocalyptic war that sounds like white people from the West in the role of orcs. Of course it won’t be that straight forward and I don’t trust the author to not flip it, see my vague point about an imperialist vibe... but still... a united Africa fighting off the “west” ... I could get with that.
Three stars seems a bit mean for a book that put me through so much, but I am sticking to it.