I picked up a couple of freebies at Balticon, so I'm going to review them. And yes, I already finished one of them.
When I looked at the cover art of "The Prey of Gods," I thought I was getting Afro-Futurism. The back cover is a bit more honest.
The Prey of Gods has too much magic for Afro-Futurism...and too much tech for urban fantasy. It basically invents its own genre. It engages with technology, identity and concepts of science and magic intertwined. And with South Africa.
Part of me still wants to call it Afro-Futurism, except it isn't science fiction. Or is it? I honestly can't tell.
And none of that kept me from enjoying it. The one flaw it did have was a slightly abrupt ending - not quite as bad as early C.J. Cherryh, but close. Drayden needs to work on her endings and her pacing just a little bit. Her characters are well-defined, her mythology is internally consistent, it's just that endings are hard.
The feel actually reminds me a little bit of Gaiman, except with a flavor to it that reveals the author's ethnicity as clearly as the back cover photo. In a good way.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy genre-bending weirdness with a large slice of African sensibility.
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