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...

Please nominate my novel From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain for the Carl Brandon Awards. For information about my book, please check the sidelinks with interviews and more! But what are the Carl Brandon Awards , you ask? Read on, gentle ones: The Carl Brandon Parallax Award is given to works of speculative fiction created by a person of color. Nominees must provide a brief statement self-identifying as a person of color; creators unwilling to do so will not be considered for this award. This Award includes a $1000 cash prize. The Carl Brandon Kindred Award is given to any work of speculative fiction dealing with issues of race and ethnicity; nominees may be of any racial or ethnic group. This Award includes a $1000 cash prize. We are now accepting nominations for the 2008 awards for books published in 2007 . The nominations period runs through July 2008.