The Black God's Drums
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4.6 • 51 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Rising science fiction and fantasy star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God's Drums.
Alex Award Winner!
In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air--in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.
But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.
Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.
“A sinewy mosaic of Haitian sky pirates, wily street urchins, and orisha magic. Beguiling and bombastic!”—New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clark masterfully rewrites history in this spellbinding post Civil War fantasy. America is 15 years past an armistice between the Union, where slavery is illegal, and the Confederacy, where it still reigns, and New Orleans remains the only free and neutral port in all the land. Thirteen-year-old Creeper is an orphan surviving on the margins of New Orleans whose fortunes change when she uncovers a Confederate plot to recreate the titular otherworldly weapon, which ensured devastating victory for Haitian revolutionaries, and use it against the Union. With help from Ann-Marie St. Augustine, an airship captain who could be Creeper's ticket out of New Orleans, and the goddess Oya, Creeper must prevent Confederate soldiers from unleashing the wrath of a furious god upon a city and a nation that will not see it coming. Clark employs fervent, emotive prose to construct an elaborate world populated by diverse, complex people. The story is thrillingly original and will enthrall fans of alternate histories.
Customer Reviews
Well Worth A Read!
I truly enjoyed the story and characters! I hope a follow up is written.
Good stuff.
Short! But then I remembered it wasn't billed as a novel when I bought it, so I can't actually complain about that.
For reasons, I got distracted in the middle of this novella & came back to it months later. The story was memorable enough that I didn't have to re-read anything. Just picked it right up.
I like the different dialects that the characters have when speaking. It's always a trick to have dialects that sound organic -- and impart them to readers who may not know how to parse them well. I think it works nicely!
(If you don't usually read dialects, you could do worse than cutting your teeth on the ones here. Good stuff.)