P. Djèli Clark: The Black God’s Drums

[bibliogramma]

P. Djeli Clark’s novella, The Black God’s Drums, is a steampunk adventure with a difference. In Clark’s alternate 19th century world, the revolution in Haiti - the only successful slave rebellion in our own world’s Northern Hemisphere - was so successful that much of the Caribbean is now part of the independent Free Isles, protected from invasion by a mysterious secret weapon known as the Black God’s drums. America’s Civil War has turned into a stalemated conflict that’s exhausted both sides, and New Orleans is a proud free city where airships from around the world come to trade.

New Orleans is the home of Creeper, an orphaned street kid born during a violent storm, who sometimes has visions sent by Oya, goddess of storms. One night, Creeper overhears a group of Confederate soldiers making plans to meet a Haitian scientist who, they say, is prepared to sell them the secret of the Black God’s drums.

When Creeper decides to give this information to a pirate captain, Anne-Marie of the Midnight Robber, whom she knows to be working for Haiti and the Free Isles in return for a place on the captain’s ship, she is drawn into a matter of magic, danger, and the powers of the sister goddesses that ride her and the captain.

It’s a powerful story that blends steampunk sensibilities with ancient deities from Africa in a combination that seems just right for a tale set in New Orleans.