Throughout, James makes the unreal real, without resorting to the kind of sludgy exposition that sometimes is referred to with a deepening sigh as “world-building.” James’ settings feel lived-in and complex, down to the stink-eye the urban folk of Kongor give to the naked riverfolk: “To wear only skin is to wear the mind of a child, the mind of the mad, or even the mind of men with no role in society.” It’s a cruel world, much as ours is. Neither is “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” Afrofuturism or even, really, “the African Game of Thrones,” as many – including James – have called it. James certainly makes his own unique contribution to the process of decentralizing the white European experience in fantasy fiction, although it’s important to recognize that this process has been underway for some time - and in so many different ways that it’s just plain lazy to compare this novel with, say, works from the last decade by Nnedi Okorafor or David Anthony Durham or Nora Jemisin or Minister Faust or Nisi Shawl or Kai Ashante Wilson (perhaps even beyond lazy). The kingdoms in “Black Leopard, Red Wolf,” some urban and others rural, are depicted in the most complex way I’ve read in any fantasy or historical novel, even as the novel also moves effortlessly across all 600-plus pages. He has also cited extensive research into African epics like Son-Jara, the fable of the founding of Malian Empire, among others. The setting is a mythic, never-existed Africa that James, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2017, placed after the fall of the Roman Empire. “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” is bawdy (OK, filthy), lyrical, poignant, violent (sometimes hyperviolent), riotous, funny (filthily hilarious), complex, mysterious, and always under tight and exquisite control. Tolkien and African legends and myth, but in fact, the richly rewarding novel, first of the Dark Star trilogy, feels like a natural extension of James’ style and his interest in examining oppression, power structures and the individual’s place in an often cruel and unfeeling world. “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” was influenced by J.R.R. Some readers may be surprised that Marlon James has followed up his epic, critically acclaimed, 2015 Man Booker-winning “A Brief History of Seven Killings” with a fantasy novel.

Black leopard red wolf marlon james