With the exception of one other title released earlier this year, no other book this year got me more excited than Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf, his follow up to A Brief History of Seven Killings, and by the end of the year, it is near impossible to think of something that will disappoint me more. In all fairness, that is partially my fault. I have never been one for high fantasy, still remaining unimpressed by both The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, (so much so that I have not read the two subsequent novels of the trilogy) and that is really the main inspiration for this book, placing that kind of high fantasy in an ancient and uniquely unfamiliar Africa, a very admirable quality this book maintains even as it wholly lost me multiple times through its 620 pages. The plot, which concerns a character named Tracker who is tasked to find a missing boy with a varied group of discontents, but really, it feels like a halfhearted reason for James to craft a world that is creative and original but also dense, obtuse and rarely if ever wanting to meet the reader halfway (at least it felt that way to this reader). What kept me going is James’ rich use of language and descriptions, which allows the reader to hear smell and even taste abstract ideas that seemingly float forth through thin air. Whether he is describing a knife cutting through flesh, a gory ritual involving humanoid creatures or an ancient delicacy that might or might not be a real thing, it is this book’s strongest point, especially if you are liable to get lost amongst the mountains of world building James seems a bit too eager to drop at the feet of his fans.
Rating: 2/5
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