Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?
Stats for nerds
3recommend
6mentions
6people
2019–2024years
50% recommend17% neutral33% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- This is a fairly silly list really, missing the bulk of what's been good reads for the last quarter century(!). It's heavily biased tothings that have sold well in the past few years. That said, the books on here are quite good. I'd definitely recommend Black Leopard, Red Wolf if you want fantasy from completely different story genetics (non-Tolkien). Priory is more traditional but good fun.
Not on this list that I thought were particularly excellent, [goodreads rating in brackets]:
[4.26] Between Two Fires by Christopher Buhuelman https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13543121-between-two-fir... Horror-Fantasy. Absolutely loved this book, a travelogue through France in the grip of the Black Plague...inflicted upon humanity by Lucifer in the war on Heaven. See the sights as God abandons his children and devils in both man and mythic form ruin His creation. Takes on a hallucinatory, Book of Revelations, William Blake on bad acid feel and builds to a tremendous crescendo while retaining deep heart and complex characters.
Christopher Buhuelman is one of my favorite "new" authors, his new fantasy series The Blacktongue Thief[4.22] and The Daughters War[4.3] are both excellent as well. His horror chops enable him to to make what might be more traditional fantasy stories much more impactful. For example, The Daughters War is about an desperate existential war against goblins that is fucking horrifying, which is impressive for a critter traditionally deployed for comic effect or disposable fodder for the heroes to kick about. Even though you "know" that humans win in the end because of the chronology of the series (this was book takes place before the The Blacktongue Thief which was published first), it doesn't feel like it ever. Which is the magic of good horror writing, and is often missing from fantasy which can feel like there are no real stakes sometimes despite the epic scales presented.
[4.22] Piranesi by Susanna Clark https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi Labyrinth-Fantasy. Another book I adored, this novel has a sense of place so tangible that I am convinced that it actually exists and Susanna has been there. Piransi lives in what amounts to a pocket dimension, an infinite labyrinthine house containing amongst other things an ocean whose tides rage through the halls, flooding and revealing them in turn.
[4.3] Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-tim... Alien Encounter-SciFi. Omitting this from any best of list shows the list isn't particularly serious, this novel is exceptional. On a distant exoplanet being terraformed for future humans, a disaster leaves the scientist in charge alone and cut off from humanity, and rather than seeding the new world with monkeys to be uplifted, she uplifts instead a small species of jumping spider. We experience its evolution across millenia and as its society reaches the space faring age, until it's encounter with the last desperate remnants of humanity, fleeing a doomed civilization and descending into barbarism. The narrative techniques to tell a story of this scope work exceptionally well and the whole tale moves quickly and with surprising emotional heft. To bring the audience to understand a world and society entirely unlike ours, and make it relatable and poignant is truly impressive. I really don't like spiders, but by the end of this book I was rooting for them... at humanity's expense.
Because of shifting demographics in the book buying market, readers looking for good yarns outside of the current trend of romantasy and/or cozy scifi/fantasy may feel a little left out, but there are tons of great authors that may be forgotten from these lists for a while. I heartily recommend:
Anything by Jay Kristoff https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4735144.Jay_Kristoff, ex Nevernight[4.22] or Empire of the Vampire[4.35].
Anything by Joel Shepherd https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/215710.Joel_Shepherd, ex Spiral Wars series (scifi space opera with fascinating AI) [4.27-4.56], Cassandra Kressnov series (cyberpunk) [3.88-4.0], A Trial of Blood & Steel series (fantasy) [3.9-4.26].
Pierce Brown's Red Rising sci-fi series is excellent and magnificent in scope and scale.
Anything by Joe Abercrombie for gritty low fantasy with buckets of blood, humor, populated with legendary characters. The Bloody-Nine, Dogman, Black Dow, Caul mfing Shivers anyone? His latest series https://www.goodreads.com/series/211497-the-age-of-madness [4.45-4.6] was fantastic.
And of course the other books mentioned by other commenters, particularly anything by Ian M Banks.
- So, taking the spirit of the question - authors with unique perspectives - if you haven’t read anything by Ursula Le Guin, you really owe it to yourself to do so.
For work that explicitly draws on other cultural backgrounds, Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James is fantastic, and someone else mentioned Nnedi Okorafor, whose whole catalog is great. Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty series is also worth a read.
- Here they are for easier reference:
* Worlds To Get Lost In
- The Imperial Radch Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ann-leckie/the-impe...
- The Dead Djinn Universe (series) https://publishing.tor.com/amasterofdjinn-dbtmp1230658/97812...
- The Age of Madness Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/joe-abercrombie/a-l...
- The Green Bone Saga https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/fonda-lee/jade-city...
- The Expanse (series) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/james-s-a-corey/lev...
- The Daevabad Trilogy https://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/book/9780062678126/the-ci...
- Teixcalaan (series) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250186430
- The Thessaly Trilogy https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250811837
- Shades of Magic Trilogy https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765376466
- The Divine Cities Trilogy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/228171/city-of-stai...
- The Wormwood Trilogy https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tade-thompson/rosew...
- Black Sun (series) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Black-Sun/Rebecca-Roa...
* Words To Get Lost In
- Piranesi https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/piranesi-9781635575637
- Circe https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/madeline-miller/circe/978...
- Mexican Gothic https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/577068/mexican-goth...
- The Paper Menagerie And Other Stories https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Paper-Menagerie-a...
- Spinning Silver https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554775/spinning-sil...
- Exhalation: Stories https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/538034/exhalation-b...
- Olondria (series) https://smallbeerpress.com/books/2013/04/30/a-stranger-in-ol...
- Her Body And Other Parties: Stories https://graywolfpress.org/books/her-body-and-other-parties
- The Buried Giant https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85613/the-buried-gi...
- Radiance https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765335302
* Will Take You On A Journey
- The Changeling https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/234343/the-changeli...
- Wayfarers (series) https://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/book/9780062444134/the-lo...
- Binti (series) https://publishing.tor.com/binti-nnediokorafor/9781250203427...
- Lady Astronaut (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/ladyastronaut/
- Children of Time (duology) https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/adrian-tchaikovsky/chil...
- Wayward Children (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/waywardchildren/
- The Space Between Worlds https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/610612/the-space-be...
* Will Mess With Your Head
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/561305/black-leopar...
- Southern Reach (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/thesouthernreachtrilogy/
- The Echo Wife https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250174666
- The Locked Tomb (series) https://publishing.tor.com/gideontheninth-dbtmp1127517/97812...
- Remembrance of Earth's Past (series) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765382030
- Machineries of Empire (series) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ninefox-Gambit/Yoon-H...
* Will Mess With Your Heart
- The Broken Earth (series) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/n-k-jemisin/the-fif...
- Station Eleven https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239452/station-elev...
- This Is How You Lose the Time War https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-How-You-Lose-...
- The Poppy War Trilogy https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-poppy-war-r-f-kua...
- The Masquerade (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/themasquerade
- An Unkindness of Ghosts http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/an-unkindness-of-ghosts/
- The Bird King https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-bird-king/
- American War https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543957/american-war...
- Riot Baby https://publishing.tor.com/riotbaby-dbtmp1144773/97812502147...
- On Fragile Waves https://www.workman.com/products/on-fragile-waves#:~:text=On...
* Will Make You Feel Good
- The Goblin Emperor https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765365682
- Murderbot (series) https://publishing.tor.com/themurderbotdiaries-marthawells/9...
- The Interdependency (series) https://us.macmillan.com/series/theinterdependency/
- The Martian https://www.broadwaybooks.net/book/9780553418026
- Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/761/a-sorcerer-to-...
- Somewhat orthogonal, I've never been so disappointed by a follow up work than I have with Marlon James; from Brief History of Seven Killings to Black Leopard Red Wolf (the most abandoned book on the "to" list). Seems I'm not alone in this feeling!
- About a week ago I put down "Black Leopard Red Wolf" after a few hundred pages and absolutely little desire to continue slogging through it. So when I saw the book on this list and blog post mentioned often throughout - ha. I had to chuckle.
As many others have said before, I'm sure there's an argument for it being an objectively great book, but for me it just did absolutely nothing.
I learned a long time ago that there was no shame in stopping when you realize you get no enjoyment from reading a book. I have no problem writing off that sunk cost.
- "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin
"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar
"Priestdaddy" by Patricia Lockwood
"Black Leopard, Red Wolf" by Marlon James
"Consider Phlebas," and maybe the rest of The Culture series of novels, by Iain Banks
