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P. Djèlí Clark

The Black God's Drums Audio CD – June 15, 2019

by P. Djèli Clark (Author)

759 ratings

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In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air--in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie's trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God's Drums. But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations. Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God's Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.

Print length

1 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Recorded Books, Inc. and Blackstone Publishing
Publication date

June 15, 2019
ISBN-10

1664477918
ISBN-13

978-1664477919
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P. Djèlí Clark
2,384
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P. Djèlí Clark
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P. Djèlí Clark
1,847
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Victor LaValle
2,342
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H. G. Wells
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N. K. Jemisin
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P. Djèlí Clark
2,384
Hardcover
59 offers from $14.00
P. Djèlí Clark
1,257
Paperback
24 offers from $5.81
P. Djèlí Clark
1,847
Hardcover
74 offers from $7.60
N. K. Jemisin
891
Paperback
93 offers from $2.38
H. G. Wells
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Damian Duffy
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

P. Djéli Clark is the author of the novellas The Black Gods Drums (August 2018), winner of a 2019 Alex Award from the American Library Association, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (February 2019). His short stories have twice made the Locus Recommended Reading List and have appeared in online venues such as Fireside Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and in print anthologies including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is loosely associated with the quarterly FIYAH: A Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons. He currently resides in New England and ruminates on issues of diversity in speculative fiction at his blog The Disgruntled Haradrim.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Recorded Books, Inc. and Blackstone Publishing; Unabridged edition (June 15, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 1 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1664477918
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1664477919

Best Sellers Rank: #8,027,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #106,896 in Books on CD

Customer Reviews:
759 ratings

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P. Djèlí Clark

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Phenderson Djéli Clark is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn, and the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon nominated author of the novellas Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His short stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies including, Griots and Hidden Youth. You can find him on Twitter at @pdjeliclark and his blog The Disgruntled Haradrim.

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5 star		64%
4 star		27%
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2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Brent Lambert

An Important Historical Re-imagining

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2018

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Finished THE BLACK GOD'S DRUMS from @pdjeliclark and YALL...yall. What an amazing piece of work. I am always, always impressed by my friend, but man did he put in some work here. The worldbuilding was stellar and really took into account all the ways his alternate history would play out. I think when black writers imagine a world history where slavery isn't just one devastating loss after loss for us it's easy to lean into something utopia-ish. Of course the author's background and knowledge would never allow for something that rose colored and convenient. Haiti might be free and flourishing in this world, but the tyrannical, racist regime of the American South and its Confederates still exist. A great weapon beat back Europe, but it cost the slave rebels too. But beyond the worldbuilding, the characters are so easy to fall into. If you've seen people talk about the nuns it's for good reason. Trust me. If there was nothing else to this story but the nuns then it would be worth it.

Please, please read this story.

@pdjeliclark is going to be a name you want to say you started reading from the beginning. He has that element that so many writers (myself included) strive to find. He knows his voice and he knows the kind of stories he wants to execute with it.

Bravo my friend!

27 people found this helpful

Helpful

Fun, Quick Read

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2019

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I don’t normally read many novellas, but P. Djèlí Clark has given us quite the fun romp in The Black God’s Drums. This is a wonderful fantasy novella, easily readable in one sitting, that does a tremendous job of plot twists and world building. There’s a lot to like here!

This novella made such a fun morning read on my day off one week. First off, the world building was quite deep for something that took me roughly two hours to read. I loved the world that Clark was able to flesh out. He also has a gift for communicating with brevity but without sacrificing detail. Reading the novella was almost like watching a painter start with a blank canvas, and with each stroke, make a picture come to life. I’d now like an epic fantasy trilogy set in this same world, that’s the level of world building we’re talking here. There are also a couple twists that were fun to read and figuring out where things were going or how they’d end up kept things engaging.

There isn’t a ton to criticize in this novella. There were a couple times I felt like things worked out a little too easily for the main character. Actually, it might be better to say that there were a few sort of literal deus ex machina situations that lessened the impact of some moments for me.

If you’re looking for a fun, short read that does some really fun stuff with world building and gets your pulse pounding from scene to scene, then give The Black God’s Drums a read! I’m definitely looking forward to reading some of the other short stories and novella’s that Clark has written.

4/5 stars.

5 – I loved this, couldn’t put it down, move it to the top of your TBR pile
4 – I really enjoyed this, add it to the TBR pile
3 – It was ok, depending on your preferences it may be worth your time
2 – I didn’t like this book, it has significant flaws and I can’t recommend it
1 – I loathe this book with a most loathsome loathing

12 people found this helpful

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lisaleo (Lisa Yount)

more a series introduction than a standalone story

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2018

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This novella is clearly the start of a series, and that series is one that readers may well look forward to continuing. A steampunk story set in an alternate New Orleans around 1884, it features a pirate airship and its captain, a Civil War already under way, a supernatural weapons, and orishas (deities or spirits in the Ifa and Yoruba African religions) who possess and act through their human devotees, including Creeper, the story’s black teenage heroine, who is occupied at times by Oya, the spirit or goddess of the winds. Since Creeper is a teen, the story is likely to be especially appealing to young adult readers, but any fan of light fantasy and steampunk is likely to enjoy it.

I liked the spunky Creeper, and I look forward to learning more about her attempts to be taken on as a crew member of the pirate airship and her attraction to its captain, also a woman--not to mention her relationship with Oya and other orishas. Still, although the story was complete—the villains and their weapon were dealt with—it felt more like an introduction to the series, its characters and milieu, than a tale worth reading on its own. I hope that characters and plot will have more depth in future installments.

9 people found this helpful

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Andy

An unusual, magical and delightful story in an alternate New Orleans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2019

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'The Black God's Drums' by P Djèlí Clark, is a novella set in an alternative post US civil war New Orleans, now a place of neutrality where the Unionists and Confederates mingle with the locals, British, French and Haitians that make up the population. And in and amongst the city streets, Creeper, a young quick witted pickpocket who also happens to have a divine presence inside her, overhears a plot about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon, the Black God's Drums, information which could be her ticket off the streets, if she can find the right person to trade with.

I really enjoyed this. The world building of an alternative New Orleans in 1884, complete with skyships, magic and gods, is really deep and enriching. Even more so as the story is narrated through Creeper, complete with a slang dialect that makes the whole world really lived in and immerses you into the centre of the story.

It's a quick read (at only 128 pages), even still, the story introduces some really interesting characters that you fall in love with straight away. There's Creeper aka Jacqueline, Ann-Marie St Augustine - the one legged airship captain and her cohorts, a couple of questionable nuns, a feral orphan that is under the nun's care, and Madame Diouf of the Shá Rouj bordello in Madamesville. Really great characters that, although we're only with them briefly, draw you into the story and make you want to stay after you turn the last page.

Its an unusual, magical and delightful story that is fast paced and doesn't let up once it grips you from the start. I hope we get to revisit this wonderful world and people again. Recommended.

2 people found this helpful

Mike

Highly Recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2019

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"The Black God's Drums" is one of those rare books where all I really want to say it: "READ THIS: IT'S WONDERFUL" and then add as a postscript:

@HBO please spend a few million making this into an award-winning piece of television.

"The Black God's Drums" is a novella of only 112 pages yet in terms of world-building, character-building and plot twists, it stands up against novel two or three times its length.

Djèli Clark pulls off a first-person narrative that delivers a clear view of a complex alternative history and sustains a level of tension and excitement. The dialogue is perfect, especially the use of dialect, which brightens the storytelling and deepens the characters.

This a sparkling little novella is set in an original and uplifting alternative history in which, in the late nineteenth century, New Orleans and Haiti are independent nation-states and the Civil War has a different ending.

The story involves a wicked plot that could bring great destruction, a swashbuckling Haitian airship captain who is strong on technology but refuses to give ground to the old African Gods who call to her, innovative steampunk-ish science that has a dash of magic in it, two black nuns who seem closer to voodoo than Christianity, fanatical soldiers with a scary leader and, at the centre of it all, an engaging, fourteen-years-old goddess-possessed black street child who calls herself Creeper.

Creeper made the book for me. We see the world through her eyes and she is full of fire. At one point, Creeper manages to rescue a key character in the plot. They have never met before and the person being rescued expresses surprise it's just Creeper affecting the rescue.

“Wi. It is just . . . you?”

Creeper's response tells you a lot about he:

"I scowl up at her. I happen to think I’m plenty."

One of the things that I liked about this story was that all the good guys are women or girls, all but one of them is black and all of them kickass in their own ways.

I'm now a P. Djèli Clark fan. I've bought another of his novella, "A Dead Djinn in Cairo" and I'm hoping that he will go on to write some full-length novels.

One person found this helpful

Ren

A haunting, vivid, incredible alternate-universe story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 18, 2019

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I can’t even express how wonderful the worldbuilding and narrative voice in this book is. The alternate-universe, steampunk-esque New Orleans setting is incredible, and the story told within it is equally compelling. This was such an amazing combination of detailed historical research with speculative and otherworldly elements, beautifully incorporating African spirituality and cosmology as well as the blended diaspora traditions in the Americas. The writing is evocative, the characters are fantastic, and there were several scenes that literally gave me goosebumps as I was reading. This is a story that will stick with you for a long time after it ends.

One person found this helpful

Fiona P.

New Orleans steam punk

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 27, 2018

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I bought this on a whim after reading something about it on NK Jemisin's twitter and ended up reading it in two sittings (it would have been one but I really had to sleep!). It's a novella but packs a lot into the relatively short length; the plot is tight and the world is so clearly imagined, and characters are introduced and filled out beautifully. (Creeper and the captain are such wonderful characters, I hope he writes more in this world.)

I was reminded at times of William Gibson's orisha in the Neuromancer trilogy and George RR Martin's Fevre Dream, but this book was completely it's own wonderful thing. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

Michele

Compelling storytelling

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 11, 2018

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This story is totally immersive (I read it in less than a day), full of well-crafted worldbuilding (of the alternate Black history kind), intriguing mythology, engaging and well-rounded characters whom I found utterly fascinating, and it was at once exactly the right length (for the story it told), but far too bloody short (because I need more, more, MORE (please!) about Jacqueline and Captain Ann-Marie of the airship Midnight Robber.

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P. Djèlí Clark

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