Marlon James wants to Write "African Game of Thrones" -

[Furina]

The winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Marlon James, has said in an interview with Man of the World that his next literary adventure will be what he describes as an "African Game of Thrones". The author plans to write his own fantasy book series starting with Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

In the interview James said:

I realized how sick and tired I was of arguing about whether there should be a black hobbit in Lord of the Rings. African folklore is just as rich, and just as perverse as that shit. We have witches, we have demons, we have goblins, and mad kings. We have stories of royal succession that would put Wolf Hall to shame. We beat the Tudors two times over.

No word on story or plot just yet but James did say this:

One hundred pages describing a village? Hell yeah. A big appendix on magic techniques? Of course I’m gonna do it. Two hundred pages on a mysterious dwarf race that lives underground? Fuck yes.

Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, which explores the dark and often brutal political and criminal worlds of Jamaica.

So, Kiwis... thoughts?

Personally, I'm looking forward to it for a number of reasons.
African mythology and folklore is amazingly diverse and largely untouched in the West so I would love to see some of that wrapped up in a consumable package. As much as I adore western fantasy, it does often feel like it's turned into Tolkien + gimmick = Book. Perhaps James will be able to offer something new and interesting.
I'm also looking forward to it as it will be a good way to shut up anybody says shit like "The Witcher is racist 'cause no black people" or "White authors need to write for black people or else they're racist".

My only real concern is that it will pander to its audience and be more of a "look how much better Africa is than Europe" kind of story. I'm sure James is above this as an author, but its an easy temptation to fall to. I can certainly see a lot of copycat writers from Tumblr and the Magical PoC crowd popping up to write their own fantasy books that devolve into pulp "fuck whitey" kind of things. Actually those might be pretty funny. The Yacubians already make me kek with all my evil, un-melanin'd heart.

edit: Source

 

[autisticdragonkin]

My only real concern is that it will pander to its audience and be more of a "look how much better Africa is than Europe" kind of story. I'm sure James is above this as an author, but its an easy temptation to fall to. I can certainly see a lot of copycat writers from Tumblr and the Magical PoC crowd popping up to write their own fantasy books that devolve into pulp "fuck whitey" kind of things. Actually those might be pretty funny. The Yacubians already make me kek with all my evil, un-melanin'd heart.

If it takes place entirely in Africa (which is probably the best way to go with this kind of story) then this likely won't happen

 

[AnOminous]

Sounds potentially awesome, actually.

 

[Furina]

If it takes place entirely in Africa (which is probably the best way to go with this kind of story) then this likely won't happen

Because it's still very early in production I have no idea where it is set. I'm just assuming at this point it'll be an entirely fictional location like Westeros or Middle-Earth which is just based off of real world locations and cultures.
I have no idea what Marlon James' politics are and I'm sure he's a cool guy, but I was thinking more along the lines of the people who are going to become the fan base. Imagine if BLM took over and began policing the fan base?

 

[Abethedemon]

I think this sounds really cool. A lot of African folklore has a ton of fantasy potential. Only complaint is that this is from an author who hasn't written fantasy before, so I'm curious how he's going to handle things.

 

[I Am Do Big Fard Retard]

The winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Marlon James, has said in an interview with Man of the World that his next literary adventure will be what he describes as an "African Game of Thrones". The author plans to write his own fantasy book series starting with Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

In the interview James said:


No word on story or plot just yet but James did say this:


Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, which explores the dark and often brutal political and criminal worlds of Jamaica.

So, Kiwis... thoughts?

Personally, I'm looking forward to it for a number of reasons.
African mythology and folklore is amazingly diverse and largely untouched in the West so I would love to see some of that wrapped up in a consumable package. As much as I adore western fantasy, it does often feel like it's turned into Tolkien + gimmick = Book. Perhaps James will be able to offer something new and interesting.
I'm also looking forward to it as it will be a good way to shut up anybody says shit like "The Witcher is racist 'cause no black people" or "White authors need to write for black people or else they're racist".

My only real concern is that it will pander to its audience and be more of a "look how much better Africa is than Europe" kind of story. I'm sure James is above this as an author, but its an easy temptation to fall to. I can certainly see a lot of copycat writers from Tumblr and the Magical PoC crowd popping up to write their own fantasy books that devolve into pulp "fuck whitey" kind of things. Actually those might be pretty funny. The Yacubians already make me kek with all my evil, un-melanin'd heart.

edit: Source

African mythology is really cool (for those who haven't seen Yeelen, check it out for shaman wizard battles!) But I don't want it to be a copy/paste of Game of Thrones following Tycuma the dwarf, Dyese the mother of dragons, and the honorable House Sidibe.

 

[OtterParty]

The 100-page gratuitous African sex scenes thinly disguised as important plot will be easy enough to write but I don't see how he plans on aping the 300-page gratuitous food descriptions since there are only so many ways you can describe grilled locust in human blood with a side of dysentery.

 

[TyrannoNinja]

Hopefully he only brought up GoT because it's the trendy series in the public consciousness at the moment. His own project still sounds like something I want to look out for.

 

[AnimuGinger]

African mythology is really cool (for those who haven't seen Yeelen, check it out for shaman wizard battles!) But I don't want it to be a copy/paste of Game of Thrones following Tycuma the dwarf, Dyese the mother of thekwanes, and the honorable House Sidibe.

Fixed. With google!

 

[TiredConlanger]

The problem I foresee is like a problem whenever any really good writing (or some particularly bad, but popular writing) takes hold, where then a bunch of people then try to copy the style and surface features in order to emulate the success of the thing creating the trend. However, in such situations, it is more the case of quality of writing and/or the escapism that are appealing and handled a certain way, not the style or surface traits (such as elves fading away in some way, but not having a genuine reason in the worldbuilding).

By going "Game of Thrones BUT African," I get the distinct impression that the person doesn't give a shit about creating a different and unique world, something with its own flavor and flair. Even though the various mythologies and folklore of Africa could easily be a breeding ground for interesting ideas and new takes on old stories that haven't been done nearly so often. I worry it will just be a clone of A Song of Ice and Fire, which is bad. Though I think ASoIaF/GoT is a good series, clones necessarily have problems because they don't bother with worldbuilding or depth or taking necessary risks. Instead, such cases of copying showcase the writers' laziness and attempting to piggyback off of others' success.

Someone also mentioned the issue of fanbases. Even if this ends up being good and not a clone, instead referring to GoT/ASoIaF in terms of him wishing to write a complex and strongly built story, that's a problem lately. Even good things get hijacked by a bunch of SJW tards who think that because it happens to include minority characters or whom they try to proclaim are minorities when it makes no sense (such as SJWs in Steven Universe's fanbase sperging out over alien rocks and trying to insist they are human races and genders), therefore it is meant solely for them. They are like petulant five year olds who think that someone else liking the same thing they do somehow devalues their enjoyment of it. It's stupid, to be blunt.

 

[Furina]

The problem I foresee is like a problem whenever any really good writing (or some particularly bad, but popular writing) takes hold, where then a bunch of people then try to copy the style and surface features in order to emulate the success of the thing creating the trend. However, in such situations, it is more the case of quality of writing and/or the escapism that are appealing and handled a certain way, not the style or surface traits (such as elves fading away in some way, but not having a genuine reason in the worldbuilding).

By going "Game of Thrones BUT African," I get the distinct impression that the person doesn't give a shit about creating a different and unique world, something with its own flavor and flair. Even though the various mythologies and folklore of Africa could easily be a breeding ground for interesting ideas and new takes on old stories that haven't been done nearly so often. I worry it will just be a clone of A Song of Ice and Fire, which is bad. Though I think ASoIaF/GoT is a good series, clones necessarily have problems because they don't bother with worldbuilding or depth or taking necessary risks. Instead, such cases of copying showcase the writers' laziness and attempting to piggyback off of others' success.

Someone also mentioned the issue of fanbases. Even if this ends up being good and not a clone, instead referring to GoT/ASoIaF in terms of him wishing to write a complex and strongly built story, that's a problem lately. Even good things get hijacked by a bunch of SJW tards who think that because it happens to include minority characters or whom they try to proclaim are minorities when it makes no sense (such as SJWs in Steven Universe's fanbase sperging out over alien rocks and trying to insist they are human races and genders), therefore it is meant solely for them. They are like petulant five year olds who think that someone else liking the same thing they do somehow devalues their enjoyment of it. It's stupid, to be blunt.

I understand what you mean and hope that Marlon James was simply referring to it as an "African GoT" as shorthand to explain what it is he's planning. Instead of saying he wants to create a political thriller revolving around conflicting families set in an African-inspired world, full of action, romance and surprises" he just put in a way that anyone could understand.
Then again, maybe he's just planning a race flipped version of GoT full of his own interpretations of what Africa is like rather than showing any genuine research. We'll see what happens when he writes it.

By the way, if anyone is interested in African Sci-Fi I recently read a book called The Ear, The Eye and The Arm. It's written by a white woman but she's a White African and if you refuse to accept that White Africans exist then you are a RACIST! #triggered.

 

[Judge Holden]

"African Game of thrones"

fuck just have a series of "life in the congo" and you will have more rape, more mutilations, more death and betrayal and more medieval horseshit than a thousand game of thrones

Sub saharan africa wishes it could be as happy and peaceful as westeros

 

[HG 400]

Wait wait wait wait wait there's a black guy who can read?

 

[CatParty]

No one wants more d&d hobbit wizards crap especially if they black

 

[Big Nasty]

Atlas Games did a D&D module called "Nyambe - African Adventures" that was pretty cool.

 

[Morbid Boredom]

The only problem is exactly what he described it as... "African Game of Thrones". You hurt yourself as soon as you make comparisons like that.

Still, there's plenty of material, George RR Martin kludged plenty of real-world stuff together, why not this guy?

 

[K>C]

Interesting, I will look out for this series.

 

[ActualKiwi]

So...they'll all get HIV or Ebola and die of either that or malnutrition? Will there be child soldiers? Deflated-breast women?

 

[Morbid Boredom]

So...they'll all get HIV or Ebola and die of either that or malnutrition? Will there be child soldiers? Deflated-breast women?

You're not as far off as you're snarking. If following the example of A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin repeatedly points out that life in Westeros is hellish for most people -no shiny knights and happy peasants.

 

[ActualKiwi]

You're not as far off as you're snarking. If following the example of A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin repeatedly points out that life in Westeros is hellish for most people -no shiny knights and happy peasants.

Wasn't intending to snark, was being pretty serious >.> I wouldn't be at all surprised by all of that sort of stuff, given the brutal medieval-esque state-of-life realism in various parts of GoT/ASoIaF similar hellish-reality stuff in an african version would be pretty expected.