Name: Steph's review of Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Item: Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Rating: 3
Author: Steph

Marlon James

The epic novel from Marlon James, the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings: an African Game of Thrones. In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. 

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

As Tracker follows the boy’s scent–from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers–he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that’s come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

Jeff Kirby

Steph

The story and characters are immense. A brutal world with a story that you can take no meaning from or many. It's just pure fun. It's fantastic. I loved every second of it, and it will go down as one of the greatest fantasy stories I've ever read!

Max Riley

The Dark Star Trilogy 1

Patrick Book

3.5*. James is a virtually unparalleled writer, but I would really love to see what he can do in, say, under 400 pages.

mic shulman

can you believe quarantine has lasted so long that my book club has read three whole books together! i’m so glad this was our last pick, because it was so unlike anything i’ve read before. i loved trackers raw angry and sardonic voice, his ability to analyze anyone but himself, and the utter contempt the book has for wealth and royalty and prophecy.

Wow this book was so fucking good - absolutely deserving of the National Book Award nomination. I took my time reading this and I’m so glad it did. It’s so rich in myth and I found Tracker to be an extremely likable character. Beautifully written, the quest fantasy was full of found family, betrayal, heartbreak, and what it meant to do the right thing and even if there was a right thing. My only qualm was that it was a bit hard to get into and took me about 150 pages before I really was invested, but once I was, it was amazing. 

Katie Allard

Apiecalypse Jen

"A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made." —Neil Gaiman "Gripping, action-packed....The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In this epic, internationally bestselling novel from Marlon James, the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, myth, fantasy and history merge in the stunning story of a mercenary's quest to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Hired to ﬁnd a mysterious boy who has disappeared, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he ﬁnds himself part of a group assembled to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as the Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent, he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he ﬁghts for survival, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep the boy from being found? And perhaps most important of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.

Gillian Rose

2.5 stars.

Way too long and weird for me. I really seem to have problems with animal/human characters in these type of stories.

Kirsten Simkiss

I tried picking up and starting this book twice and each time I tried, I just had no desire to continue reading it. To be clear, I made it 18 pages the first time and 25 pages the second time and I just wanted to throw it across the room every time the author compared something completely unnecessarily to a sexual organ or sexualized body part. The final straw for me is that on page 25, there’s a scene with a man fondling a boy from the village and it’s totally normal. Even without the sexualization of things, the base writing isn’t good enough to make me want to keep reading on to see if it gets better. This is a hard no from me.

Friends, I cannot in good conscience recommend this book to you.

The Dark Star Trilogy

This intense, challenging novel wields uncompromising formal invention to tell a total ripper of an action-fantasy story, breaking new ground in an increasingly stale genre with a truly astonishing display of craft and creativity. Set in a secondary world modeled on pre-colonial African cultures and mythologies, 

 takes the form of a tale told by its protagonist, the wayward Tracker, to his most recent captors. After detailing his origins, he launches into the main story—the ill-fated search for a kidnapped child.

 is absolutely an epic fantasy adventure—with all the battles, magic, and political intrigue that entails—but, coming from such a resolutely non-Western background and mythic structure, it feels utterly different in the best way possible. Beautiful and brutal, tender and horrific, grounded and psychedelic, this is a work of intense extremes—James’ complex language and tagless dialogue opening the door to elegant, violent action sequences and multifaceted queer eroticism.

 is a fascinating addition to a lineage of difficult literary genre fiction, in a league with seminal forebears like Morrison’s 

 without being indebted to them. A hard, wild, deeply rewarding ride

Mark Wadley

This intense, challenging novel wields uncompromising formal invention to tell a total ripper of an action-fantasy story, breaking new ground in an increasingly stale genre with a truly astonishing display of craft and creativity. Set in a secondary world modeled on pre-colonial African cultures and mythologies, Black Leopard, Red Wolf takes the form of a tale told by its protagonist, the wayward Tracker, to his most recent captors. After detailing his origins, he launches into the main story—the ill-fated search for a kidnapped child.

On its face, Black Leopard is absolutely an epic fantasy adventure—with all the battles, magic, and political intrigue that entails—but, coming from such a resolutely non-Western background and mythic structure, it feels utterly different in the best way possible. Beautiful and brutal, tender and horrific, grounded and psychedelic, this is a work of intense extremes—James’ complex language and tagless dialogue opening the door to elegant, violent action sequences and multifaceted queer eroticism.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a fascinating addition to a lineage of difficult literary genre fiction, in a league with seminal forebears like Morrison’s Beloved, Delany’s Dhalgren, and Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer without being indebted to them. A hard, wild, deeply rewarding ride

Shay Henrion

Zahia Saeed 

I think I am in a dnfing streak 

Reading this book is turning my brain into mush

Savannah Winchell

DNF AT 400
I might come back but I feel like this book was just trying to be gross and shocking without purpose. Also I would have appreciated it if women weren’t relegated to rape and abuse victims in men’s stories. Like that’s literally it. There’s 2 female characters that are actually kind of characters and one of them isn’t even named

An epic fantasy tale rooted in African mythology and folklore that moves through a multitude of vibrantly-imagined hostile environments. Extremely violent, sexual, and crass, almost to a fault. I genuinely enjoyed the story on the whole, though it often felt like the author was cosplaying as an edgelord, adding in overtly offensive elements purely for the shock value. 

The Sunday Times Number 1 Bestseller and A New York Times Bestseller 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the kind of novel I never realized I was missing until I read it. A dangerous, hallucinatory, ancient Africa, which becomes a fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter's. I cannot wait for the next installment' Neil Gaiman In this stunning follow-up to his Man Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine an ancient world, a lost child, an extraordinary hunter, and a mystery with many answers... 'The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.' Tracker is a hunter, known throughout the thirteen kingdoms as one who has a nose - and he always works alone. But he breaks his own rule when, hired to find a lost child, he finds himself part of a group of hunters all searching for the same boy. Each of these companions is stranger and more dangerous than the last, from a giant to a witch to a shape-shifting Leopard, and each has secrets of their own. As the mismatched gang follow the boy's scent from perfumed citadels to infested rivers to the enchanted darklands and beyond, set upon at every turn by creatures intent on destroying them, Tracker starts to wonder: who really is this mysterious boy? Why do so many people want to stop him being found? And, most important of all, who is telling the truth and who is lying? Marlon James weaves a tapestry of breathtaking adventure through a world at once ancient and startlingly modern. And, against this exhilarating backdrop of magic and violence, he explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star Trilogy.

Dark Star Trilogy Book 1

Brian Alderman

Different fantasy than anything I've ever read. Fascinating, but difficult

Sheila

This book is absolutely 100% a shroom-fuelled fever dream and I was consistently not high enough to truly appreciate it... I think. It is definitely unique, but part 1 goes on for far too long before you get to any semblance of meat of the plot. Also, women seem to have been unilaterally featured as villains in this book? Warnings for mentions of rape & pedophilia.

Lisa Sieverts 

'Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the kind of novel I never realized I was missing until I read it. A dangerous, hallucinatory, ancient Africa, which becomes a fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter's. I cannot wait for the next installment' Neil Gaiman In this stunning follow-up to his Man Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine an ancient world, a lost child, an extraordinary hunter, and a mystery with many answers... 'The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.' Tracker is a hunter, known throughout the thirteen kingdoms as one who has a nose - and he always works alone. But he breaks his own rule when, hired to find a lost child, he finds himself part of a group of hunters all searching for the same boy. Each of these companions is stranger and more dangerous than the last, from a giant to a witch to a shape-shifting Leopard, and each has secrets of their own. As the mismatched gang follow the boy's scent from perfumed citadels to infested rivers to the enchanted darklands and beyond, set upon at every turn by creatures intent on destroying them, Tracker starts to wonder: who really is this mysterious boy? Why do so many people want to stop him being found? And, most important of all, who is telling the truth and who is lying? Marlon James weaves a tapestry of breathtaking adventure through a world at once ancient and startlingly modern. And, against this exhilarating backdrop of magic and violence, he explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star Trilogy.

Dark Star Trilogy 1

Jade Flynn

Read for the Winter 2019 Magical Readathon. Week 1 Prompt - Grab your most recently acquired read!

Maytal

I really didn’t feel this book which was a disappointing reaction because I’d been looking forward to reading it for a long time

Ben Nathan

This was definitely a book. The writing is good, but not so sure about the story. I think I love speculative fiction because all the energy goes into it being good and that means sometimes it's important. Literary works tend to put so their work into being important and that means sometimes they get to be good. This felt a little too literary for me.

Anyaconda

DNF at 20%
Wow. This was my most anticipated book of 2019 and I hated it.
It's not my writing style and throughout I'm confused AF. I don't mind reading about explicit content, but this was just too much cunt and dick even for my tastes (I love TGOT and I'm currently reading The Barrow).
I simply cannot see the "literary genius" of this book. Sorry.
I'm so incredibly disappointed.

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram

(3.5) Review also found here at Booked J. As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf was such a commitment for me. In a good way. It is an epic fantasy to its very core (which sometimes was a challenge for me, personally, but not painfully so!) and is detailed beautifully. Further, the worldbuilding is highly engaging and descriptive. As such, you can tell that James put forth a great deal of effort in portraying this world and it shows.

Between the folklore, setting, use of fantasy and diversity, it is easy to see why readers have been quick to sink their teeth in the story. Black Leopard, Red Wolf has been praised for many good reasons. In that regard, though, it won't be for everyone.

If you aren't able to focus on fantasy that has a tendency to be a bit overindulgent and long, you should avoid it. Unless you are absolutely keen on picking it up. One of the only complaints I've got towards it is its pacing and how some points in the story felt like that they dragged on unnecessarily, but I'm still beyond thrilled to have read it.

At its best, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is beautifully engaging and a blast. Marlon James starts off a very promising series that will surely get better with time. I'm ready for the sequel.

Rick Powell

Marlon James' lyrical, and it must be said, brutal and sexy prose stunned me, sometimes frustrated me, but almost always beguiled me. I can't think of a more challenging and satisfying stylist working in the genre. So many beautiful fantasy books start off promising and then the demands of narrative closure constrain the experimentation. Offhand I'm thinking of Seraphina but there are many examples. Not so with BLRW, which draws its magical runes in the air in front of us right up until the very end, even further whomping us over the head with a change in storytelling tactics just before it looks like we'll be told everything. Not surprising, since one of the subjects of this book's inquiries is storytelling itself.

The book's not perfect — I could have done with less bloody battles. But Tracker is an indelible character if not one easily understood or accepted. He's no role model, that's for sure. But I'm following him as long as James lets me. 

Like Tracker, I love the Ogo, too.

Steph &
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Steph &Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Steph &
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James