The Black God's Drums

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.

Try for £0.00

More purchase options

The Black God's Drums

By: P. Djeli Clark

Narrated by: Channie Waites

Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £8.31

Summary

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 onboard 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.

P. Djeli ClarkChannie WaitesRecorded Books

Fantasy

Fiction

Historical

Science Fiction

Steampunk

Fantasy Fiction Historical Science Fiction Steampunk

Most relevant

CW: Racism (Against Black people - shown as appropriately wrong, Slurs against Asian people included in dialogue and narration - not addressed), Slavery, Injury Detail, Sex Work

Alternative history steampunk New Orleans with a diverse crew of sky pirates and god powers.

There are so many elements to this novella that are great -- The alternative New Orleans and the general worldbuilding and set dressing, the gods and how they travelled with the people and connected to certain individuals, and some lovely turns of phrase and passages. But there are also a number of things working against it for me -- The length and depth of the story, which seemed like it would have been better served as a tighter short story or expanded on and allowed to breathe as a novel, the narrative itself that is great in theory, but didn't work as well for me and was overshadowed by other elements being so strong (both of which contribute to or are exacerbated by the pacing being a little unwieldy, and the repeated inclusion of a slur as a name for a character without any commentary. This last point is linked to how the protagonist sees and names people by a single seemingly obvious fact about them, whether this be their nationality/ heritage, religion, etc. There is a Mongolian character, who frankly only seems to be included for this weirdness, she mistakenly believes is Chinese who she names a slur. The character is corrected about their origin, but the pejorative is never addressed. I am unsure where this book was published, but the word used is absolutely a slur in the UK and I have seen North American comedians discuss the slur. It's especially weird in a book that includes the Confederates and slavery.

I really wanted to love this and adore the idea on paper and some of the passages, but the negative elements detracted too heavily from the wonderful concepts and some moments of brilliance. I would still like to check out more from this author for sure.

The narrator is phenomenal and truly imbues the words with drama and emotion.

Shout out to the people taking reviewing this book as an opportunity to be extremely racist, play down the evils of the Confederates, bemoan a book having an "unrealistic" diverse cast, and even calling the simple fact of having a Black femme on the cover "virtue signalling". And by shout out I mean WTF get out of here with that BS and get help. Also, please learn that racism requires a sociopolitical power imbalance, so you should be incorrectly whinging about perceived prejudice instead.