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Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes check out website: www.twobookmark.com
The Europeans were virtually wiped out by plague and it is therefore African civilisations and Islam which have opened up the New World. It is a rich, multi-layered tale of an Irish peasant boy, Aidan, who is captured by slavers who burn his village and kill his father.
Steven Barnes creates an heroic scale a colonial world which has slave plantations like the old South but ruled by African masters and worked by their down-trodden European slaves. This alternate world is a great deal more vibrant than merely history turned upside down. It is told from the viewpoints of two friends: Aidan the Irish slave and that of his master's younger son, Kai, as they grow from children to adults. It is an imaginative story fully peopled with well rounded, three-dimensional characters set against the exotic backdrop of Bilalistan, as this Islamic America is known. It has palaces, castles, kraals, mosques and external enemies such as the Aztecs and Norsemen. Barnes skilfully brings his whole world to life by including details of architecture, religion, economics, poetry, philosophy, fashion and African and Irish history, but does so with a light touch which enriches the story whilst maintaining its human interest. The main characters grow in depth as they age and become more involved with women, politics and their wider world. Barnes depicts the nastier more brutal side of life as well as romance, honour, humour and gallantry as this world comes under pressure from war, slave revolts and changing times. It is a story told with passion and compassion. Barnes sets a very high benchmark for others writing in the speculative genre to match. This book is an excellent, well-written story and thoroughly recommended. It is thought provoking as well as absorbing. Paul Hanley
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OTHER REVIEWS - March 2004
Chasing Science by Frederick Pohl Wolves Of The Calla by Stephen King and illustrated by Bernie Wrighton The Mammoth Book Of Native Americans edited by Jon E. Lewis Changing Planes by Ursula Le Guin Red Star Rising: More Chronicles Of Pern by Anne McCaffrey Three Hearts And Three Lions by Poul Anderson Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg Buffy: Seven Crows by John Vornholt The Dragon Of Despair by Jane Lindsjold Gunpowder Empire by Harry Turtledove Barry Trotter And The Unnecessary Sequel by Michael Gerber Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 2003 The Moon’s Shadow by Catherine Asaro Which Way To The Future: Selected Essays From Analog by Stanley Schmidt
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Steven
Barnes's 'Lion's Blood' is an epic alternative history. His 'what
if?' is that it is Africans, rather than Europeans, who discovered
and colonised North America. 
He
is shipped over to the New World where he is sold with his mother
to slave on a plantation. It is an adventure story but much, much
more. 
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