Marlon James' "Black leopard, red wolf"

You can find this book here.

James' book is epic in nature: in length and scope of the book, which by the way is the first in a trilogy, known as the Dark Star Trilogy.

In the first of this series, Tracker is hired as a mercenary to find a missing boy. the reason for this is because "he has a nose" for tracking anyone down. The book's perspective is all Tracker's and as it progresses it shows how whilst he is used to working alone, he teams up with a band of people with different abilities and secrets to find the boy. One of these is a shape-shifter who turns into a black leopard, mentioned in the book's title.

So, when I say this book is epic, I mean it. It draws from African history and mythology and James' own imagination to create a layered novel that looks at themes of power, ambition and truth. I think truth is very important in this novel, particularly as you only gain one character's perspective throughout. However, the trilogy itself will focus on different characters in each of the other two books to look at the same events in different ways; really bringing a look at what truth is to people, or at least these characters. 

Not only this, but the writing style is not linear and there is always a lot going on that may be hard to follow. I found that it took awhile for me to understand this flow; but once I did, it was a really strong read. You just have to make it through the first thirty pages or so. The language is very strong and it is a very gritty and descriptive book, also something to be aware of. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. but if you are looking for a strongly written, gender-bending, fantastical epic, this book should be a go-to.

The settings and characters are well described; incredibly diverse in their abilities, personalities and cultures; and once you get past the jumping through non-linear storylines, you feel very enmeshed in the story, the characters and their fates. 

I hope you make it through the beginning of this novel, because it is a great read once you adapt to the prose.

Links for you:

Read-a-likes in the Library:

Who fears death
Nnedi Okorafor

The novel is set in an African-inspired setting where outcasts with powers go on a dangerous and violent quest. The difference is this novel is more futuristic, whereas James' is timeless.

Fifth season
N. K. Jemisin

Jemisin's book is lyrical with strong world-building. It is also Afrofantasy and has a large cast of complex characters. it is also the first in a series, though it is more apocalyptic than James'.

Staff pick: Matthew Reilly's "Ice station"

This book can be found here.

This book is action-packed, fast-paced and an all-out knock-out boy’s fight. I loved it.

This is the story of a well-trained group of US men sent to secure a classified item in Antarctica. Intrigue, fighting and natural hazards made for some unexpected twists and complications. This book was funny and eventful, making it exciting to read and talk about. I would relate it to watching a superhero movie with some of the sequences pulled off; however, the twists in this book are possible because nature is unpredictable.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read military themed novels, who enjoys twists, exciting fight sequences and humorous characters.

-- K

It is also book one (1) in Reilly's Scarecrow series; but it is not necessary to read them in order.

Film Review—Martyrs by Pascal Laugier

A young girl, Lucie Jurin, is found wondering around an abandoned industrial estate. Her body shows signs of malnutrition and physical abuse and police discover that she has been held captive and ritually abused, but her captors and their motives are never discerned. Lucie spends the next 15 years trying to adjust to the outside world and to make sense of her ordeal while being haunted by a ghoulish creature. She eventually tracts down those who held her captive and exacts her revenge, much to the shock of Anna Assaoui, her one friend who has been trying to help her. Anna tries to cover up Lucie's actions, but in the process discovers more about Lucie's captors and the horror that will soon be unleashed upon her.

The film is certainly brutal, and its ending, with its ambiguous nihilism, does not ease its impact, and for many this will immediately remove it from their viewing list. But the violence is not from some voyeuristic viciousness. It forms the heart of the narrative, where pain provides an avenue to something less profane and approaching the sacred, yet having an unbearable cost on the victim and those sanctioning the torture. What allows the film to achieve this is what is surprising of a film this brutal: its restraint. This is especially in the last act. Where cheaper films would see it as an opportunity to unleash a litany of sadistic rites of ever escalating severity, Martyrs establishes a routine of beatings and deprivations. It is testament to the much neglected role of repetition in art, seeing the violence become an ordeal and not a spectacle, to which the audience is forced to bear uncomfortable witness and share in the guilt of the tormentors.

Uncompromising yet executed with admirable restraint, Martyrs is not an indulgence in violence but a meditation on its consequences, both for the victims and the audience.
Andreas

Book Review—Peru by Gordon Lish

At the tender age of six, Gordon murdered Steven Adinoff in Andy Leiblich’s sandbox. After witnessing scenes on the television of violent acts from a prison in Peru, Gordon begins to remember this event. But as he remembers, as he interrogates whatever details his memory is willing to conjure, his thoughts take on a new form, until the very murder at the centre of Gordon’s reminiscences becomes uncertain.

Unlike other memory narratives where the process involves the clichéd “peeling an onion” technique, where removing layers of details reveals the truth, Peru works the opposite way. “There is nothing I will not tell you if I can think of it”, Gordon promises us, and so he circles around the facts of the matter as well as seemingly inconsequential details that will not yield. The flurry of repetition both immediate (“Steven Adinoff is not even the half of it, Steven Adinoff is not even a smidgen of it. For instance, for instance—speaking of the cellar for instance”) and in recurring passages (the coloured man and the Buick, the matriarchal nanny, Andy’s sister in the cellar, the hoe striking into Steven Adinoff’s head) all add to this swirling around that both confirms as it casts doubt. To add to this blurring of the real and the false Lish, the author, uses his real given name (Gordon) for the protagonist and dedicates the novel not only to his real family but also and the fictional(?) deceased boy. Even the basic assumptions of what is ‘real’ and what is fictional are not guaranteed.

Frightening with its allure of the obsessiveness of memory, Peru is a haunting look at a gruesomely twisted childhood nostalgia.

Andreas

Film Review-Salt by Director Phillip Noyce

Rating M-Action Violence and Course Language
Evelyn Salt a CIA officer desperate to protect her husband is accused of being a Russian spy by a defector.

Her supervisors are convinced of her guilt so she has to use all of her skills she learned as an operative to outsmart them and prove her innocence. There is plenty of nonstop action in Salt and clever plot twists and turns, right to the end. I enjoyed the fast paced action and Angeline Jolie was superb in the role. Angeline won the Rembrandt Award for Best International Actress for this part. Anne