Moon Witch, Spider King

Author Marlon James
Narrator Bahni Turpin
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 3 March 2022
Run Time 1 day, 6 hours and 47 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Historical fantasy, Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The second novel in Marlon James's revolutionary DARK STAR TRILOGY is here

In this mighty follow-up to his Number 1 bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Man Booker-winner Marlon James once again draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine a mythic world, a lost child, a 177-year-old witch, a deadly regal chancellor, and a mystery with many answers...

Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman - the witch Sogolon - who bows to no man, this is an unforgettable exploration of power, personality, and the places where they overlap, set in a world at once ancient and startlingly modern.

In the words of Neil Gaiman, James has created 'a fantasy world as well realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter's'.

© Marlon James 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

An epic fable drenched in African mythology. This is work that both meets the immersive worldbuilding standard in books by Tolkien and Martin and brings to the genre a voice unlike anything seen before . . . It sets readers up for what will undoubtedly be a superb finale

The Boston Globe

Booker winner James’s African-inspired imaginary kingdoms mark the series out from the usual run of epic fantasies, but his uniquely supple, powerful style is even more distinctive

The Guardian

Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King are wildly inventive, genre-defining works of fiction on the level of The Lord Of The Rings and the Broken Earth trilogy that deserve to be studied, dissected, and argued over

AV Club

An exhilarating tour de force . . . [James] establishes a new vision for the trilogy as a whole and confirms Dark Star as a true epic

John Burnside

Moving, vivid, and thought-provoking . . . brilliant

Buzzfeed

James cements his status as a wildly inventive and lyrical storyteller

Financial Times

James masterfully flips the first instalment on its head . . . [A] titanic story of empire, adventure and power

Esquire

Told with James’ inimitable linguistic verve . . . Riotous, ultraviolent, dazzlingly inventive

Literary Hub

A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter’s

Neil Gaiman

James once again shattered my expectations . . . Moon Witch, Spider King is a breathtaking book, one that functions as well as a standalone as it does a sequel . . . This is a novel that begs to be read in one sitting

NPR

Even more gripping and inventive than its predecessor . . . like Tolkien on ayahuasca

Observer

This novel’s prose style, inspired by the grammar of African languages, has an intoxicating swagger and energy

Slate

James is one of the finest writers at work today, and Moon Witch, Spider King is a complex, enthralling novel. It is also utterly uncompromising, a book which the reader must meet on its own terms

Toronto Star

A fantastical epic that draws on African mythology

The New York Times

An imaginative story that advances the trilogy in a satisfying way, deepening and expanding an already epic world

Time

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