MF GALAXY

Milton Davis’s Amber and the Hidden Cit y is an absolutely delightful contemporary fantasy adventure. It’s the story of Amber Robinson, a teenager from Atlanta who crosses the Atlantic with her grandmother because of their supernatural connection to the ancient, hidden city of Marai, located in Mali. Their aim is to use their ancestral divination power to choose Marai’s next ruler, while fighting against the usurper who wants to dominate the city for himself and the shape-shifting villainess he sends to stop them. I write Africentric fantasy fiction, and Amber and the Hidden City inspires in me the very emotions and intellectual curiosity I hope to inspire in my own readers. Davis combines relatable contemporary characters and dialogue with fascinating denizens and magic systems from an ancient world. What a delight to be learning about classical and medieval West African civilisations inside the world of a thrilling fantasy novel. Final note: I love finding novels I can...

Charles R. Saunders is the ground-breaking founding author of the genre called sword and soul , which employs the mythic structure of Eurocentric sword-and-sorcery inside an African-based fantasy setting . As you’re about to hear, Saunders’s innovation arose in response to the profoundly racist dimensions of North American publishing, especially inside fantasy. Born in Pennsylvania in 1946, Saunders achieved a degree in Psychology before moving to Canada in 1969. He lived in Ottawa for fourteen years, and since 1985 has lived in Nova Scotia. He’s been a community college teacher, research assistant, civil servant, journalist, editorialist, and copy editor. Never one to let anyone stop him, Saunders has authored of seven novels including Imaro, The Quest for Cush, Dossouye , and Abengoni: First Calling , and four books on African-Nova Scotian history , including Sweat and Soul: The Saga of Black Boxers from the Halifax Forum to Caesar’s Palace, Spirit of Africvill...

Nnedi Okorafor is the celebrated author of ten books, including The Shadow Speaker, Who Fears Death , and the forthcoming The Book of Phoenix. Zahrah the Windseeker , Okorafor’s debut novel about a highly technological world based on Nigerian myths and culture, was nominated for the Locus Best First Novel Award, shortlisted for the Parallax and Kindred Awards, a finalist for the Golden Duck and Garden State Teen Choice awards, and it won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. This episode’s conversation with Okorafor comes from way down deep in the archives of The Terrordome: The Africa All-World News Service . I spoke with Okorafor by telephone back on January 18, 2009, but back then aired only a portion of what you’ll hear now. Okorafor talked about many issues, including: Her definition of what Euro-American literary critic Mark Dery called Afrofuturism The appeal of science fiction to African audiences who have for most of the genre’s existence been excluded by it...

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science calls acclaimed novelist Nalo Hopkinson a luminary in the science fiction community. She is widely identified with Afrofuturism , an Africentric aesthetic movement in music, fashion, film-making, comic books, and novels that draws upon global African aesthetics and histories to imagine new Africentric futures. As you’re about to hear, Nalo Hopkinson has lived in many regions and communities of the Western hemisphere, making her an insider to many and an alien to many more. She’s the author of ten celebrated books including Skin Folk, Sister Mine, The New Moon’s Arms, and her explosive debut Brown Girl in the Ring, a dystopian science fiction adventure set in near-future Toronto featuring an African-Canadian heroine and the orisha gods of Nigeria and Benin who are central to the New World African cultures and religions of the Caribbean and South America.   In many ways Hopkinson and fellow author Tananarive Due nove...

Screen animation and comic book writer Brandon Easton has written for the animated series Transformer Rescue Bots and the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats, and for comics including Shadowlaw, Watson & Holmes, Miles Away, Roboy, The Joshua Run , and Arkanium , and the motion comic Armarauders . He’s also authored a bio-graphic novel about pro-wrestler Andre the Giant. News outlets such as Forbes and Wired have noted Easton’s work, and so have awards juries. Easton's original graphic novel Shadowlaw received a 2014 Best Single Issue nomination from the Eisner Comic Industry Award. In 2014, the East Coast Black Age of Comics, or ECBAC, gave Easton three Glyph Awards, including Fan Award, Story of the Year, and Best Writer, for scripting Watson and Holmes #6, and in 2013, the Best Writer Glyph for Shadowlaw . Easton is also the documentary film-maker behind Brave New Souls: Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers of the 21st Century. Easton spoke with me on Dece...