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Charles Saunders: Abengoni : First Calling
Sep. 6th, 2018 05:35 pmI’ve loved Charles Saunders’ African-inspired fantasy writing for years, ever since I read the very first stories about Imaro, the heroic warrior destined by the gods to battle the forces of evil. Imaro, and the wonderful woman warrior Dossouye, were some of the earliest examples of heroic fantasy that featured black protagonists, moving fearlessly through magical worlds based on African places and societies.
In his new novel, Abengoni: First Calling - the first volume of a planned epic fantasy series - Saunders gives us a new creation, different in conception and intent from his Nyumbani, the world of his sword and sorcery heroes Imaro and Dossouye.
As Saunders says in his foreword to First Calling,
“For Abengoni, a different creative drumbeat thrummed in my mind. What if there were another Earth in which people from parallel versions of Europe and Africa encountered each other on an equal basis, rather than fictionally reprising the racism and colonialism that have for centuries wracked the so-called “Dark Continent” of the world we know? What if European and African folkloric traditions could be integrated within the context of an epic fantasy saga, rather than remain at racial loggerheads?
The Abengoni series is my answer to those questions. It was conceived and written in a spirit of amity rather than anger. Yes, the people of different races within the pages of First Calling are aware of their surface differences, such as skin tone and nose width. They are not color-blind. But they do not attach the suite of negative stereotypes to those differences that have led to the bigotry, discrimination, segregation and apartheid that have plagued our world for far too long. The distorting lens of racism does not exist in Abengoni.”
Saunders’ epic begins in the city of Khambawe, the capital city of the declining Matile Mala Empire. Once more powerful in both its mundane and magical power, the greatest of all the kingdoms of Abengoni, the Empire has faded from the height of its glory, following a catastrophic event known as the War of Storms, which has also cut off the trade with the Fidi, people of a distant continent, which had brought the Empire some of its wealth.
The War of Storms was a war of both men and gods - called Jagasti. The god of the underworld Legaba encouraged rebellion among the Uloans, natives of an island colony of the Matile Mala Empire. As the Matiles fought the revolunaries of Uloa, and the Jagisti massed against Legaba, the forces awakened by the magics used by men and gods on both sides brought about vast destruction, and permanently altered the seas that lay around Abengoni, filling them with massive storms and isolating the continent from the rest of the world. Further revolts among subjugated people followed on the war with Uloa, destroying much of the Empire’s wealth and strength, leaving it a mere shadow of its former magnificence, which slowly continued to fade.
Saunders paints a rich and complex picture of a society in decay. Political factions within, a rebellious underclass, its last remaining allies reconsidering their relationships, semi-autonomous regions contemplating independence, enemy nations waiting for the moment to strike - all these threaten the stability of the once great empire.
It is within this web of potential dangers that a strange and inexplicable event occurs. At an important annual religious ritual, the First Calling, where the sea goddess Nama-kwah blesses the city by temporarily manifesting herself in in the body of a specially trained priestess and dances on the surface of the waters, the expected manifestation fails. The priestess Tiyana feels only a momentary contact with the goddess hears a single word, “Danger” as the goddesses message, and then no more. Suddenly, as the ceremony falters, a large ship looms out of the morning mists, slowly coming into the harbour. When it comes to rest, ramming the great stone dock, the Matiles investigate, only to find the ship full of dead and almost dead men of Fidi, whom they recognise by their white skin and many colours of hair.
Among the the few survivors of the mighty, but battered, ship is a man who appears to be a wielder of magical powers, or ashuma, like the priestess Tiyana and her father Jass Gebram, the Leba, or chief priest. The two of them devote themselves to nursing him, while the other survivors are cared for by healers from the city. When he wakens, and shares his story, they learn that he is Kyroun ni Channar, a descendant if a man from Matile Mala who travelled to Fidi - which is called Cym Dinath by its inhabitants - 500 years ago and was trapped there by the beginning of the War of Storms.
Kyroun is a Seer, and the chief priest of an ancient god named Almovaar, whose worship had declined to almost nothing in Cym Dinath. After some not very successful attempts to revive the worship of Almovaar in the land of his birth, Kyroun received a message from his god to risk the Sea of Storms and return to Abengoni, to bring the worship of Almovaar to that continent.
Kyroun and his followers, and the surviving members of the ship’s crew, are made welcome in Khambawe. Some of the survivors, members of a dwarf-like people, are hosted by the Tokoloshe, allies of the Matile, dwarves like them, only dark-skinned rather than light, at their people’s embassy, while Gebram and his daughter take responsibility for Kyroun himself. But the arrival of the people of Fidi has triggered something that the people of Matile are unaware of - the god Legaba, still worshipped among the Uloans, has declared that Retribution Time has come, the time for Uloa to wage a full-scale assault on what remains of the Matile Mala Empire and destroy it utterly. And the Empire, though no one yet has spoken of it, stands almost defenseless, for the Jagisti have deserted them, and their priests and acolytes, who once could wield the magic of ashuma, are almost powerless.
But this is just the beginning of what awaits the failing kingdom of Matile Mala, and the strangers from Fidi with their powerful but mysterious new god.
Saunders’ first novel of Abengoni introduces a sweeping cast of men and gods inhabiting a world with a long and complex past into which many things, new and old may come. And through the great tapestry that is Abengoni run the themes of power and responsibility, choice and consequence, that must eventually be faced by every being, even the gods. I am anxiously awaiting the next volume of this tale.
In his new novel, Abengoni: First Calling - the first volume of a planned epic fantasy series - Saunders gives us a new creation, different in conception and intent from his Nyumbani, the world of his sword and sorcery heroes Imaro and Dossouye.
As Saunders says in his foreword to First Calling,
“For Abengoni, a different creative drumbeat thrummed in my mind. What if there were another Earth in which people from parallel versions of Europe and Africa encountered each other on an equal basis, rather than fictionally reprising the racism and colonialism that have for centuries wracked the so-called “Dark Continent” of the world we know? What if European and African folkloric traditions could be integrated within the context of an epic fantasy saga, rather than remain at racial loggerheads?
The Abengoni series is my answer to those questions. It was conceived and written in a spirit of amity rather than anger. Yes, the people of different races within the pages of First Calling are aware of their surface differences, such as skin tone and nose width. They are not color-blind. But they do not attach the suite of negative stereotypes to those differences that have led to the bigotry, discrimination, segregation and apartheid that have plagued our world for far too long. The distorting lens of racism does not exist in Abengoni.”
Saunders’ epic begins in the city of Khambawe, the capital city of the declining Matile Mala Empire. Once more powerful in both its mundane and magical power, the greatest of all the kingdoms of Abengoni, the Empire has faded from the height of its glory, following a catastrophic event known as the War of Storms, which has also cut off the trade with the Fidi, people of a distant continent, which had brought the Empire some of its wealth.
The War of Storms was a war of both men and gods - called Jagasti. The god of the underworld Legaba encouraged rebellion among the Uloans, natives of an island colony of the Matile Mala Empire. As the Matiles fought the revolunaries of Uloa, and the Jagisti massed against Legaba, the forces awakened by the magics used by men and gods on both sides brought about vast destruction, and permanently altered the seas that lay around Abengoni, filling them with massive storms and isolating the continent from the rest of the world. Further revolts among subjugated people followed on the war with Uloa, destroying much of the Empire’s wealth and strength, leaving it a mere shadow of its former magnificence, which slowly continued to fade.
Saunders paints a rich and complex picture of a society in decay. Political factions within, a rebellious underclass, its last remaining allies reconsidering their relationships, semi-autonomous regions contemplating independence, enemy nations waiting for the moment to strike - all these threaten the stability of the once great empire.
It is within this web of potential dangers that a strange and inexplicable event occurs. At an important annual religious ritual, the First Calling, where the sea goddess Nama-kwah blesses the city by temporarily manifesting herself in in the body of a specially trained priestess and dances on the surface of the waters, the expected manifestation fails. The priestess Tiyana feels only a momentary contact with the goddess hears a single word, “Danger” as the goddesses message, and then no more. Suddenly, as the ceremony falters, a large ship looms out of the morning mists, slowly coming into the harbour. When it comes to rest, ramming the great stone dock, the Matiles investigate, only to find the ship full of dead and almost dead men of Fidi, whom they recognise by their white skin and many colours of hair.
Among the the few survivors of the mighty, but battered, ship is a man who appears to be a wielder of magical powers, or ashuma, like the priestess Tiyana and her father Jass Gebram, the Leba, or chief priest. The two of them devote themselves to nursing him, while the other survivors are cared for by healers from the city. When he wakens, and shares his story, they learn that he is Kyroun ni Channar, a descendant if a man from Matile Mala who travelled to Fidi - which is called Cym Dinath by its inhabitants - 500 years ago and was trapped there by the beginning of the War of Storms.
Kyroun is a Seer, and the chief priest of an ancient god named Almovaar, whose worship had declined to almost nothing in Cym Dinath. After some not very successful attempts to revive the worship of Almovaar in the land of his birth, Kyroun received a message from his god to risk the Sea of Storms and return to Abengoni, to bring the worship of Almovaar to that continent.
Kyroun and his followers, and the surviving members of the ship’s crew, are made welcome in Khambawe. Some of the survivors, members of a dwarf-like people, are hosted by the Tokoloshe, allies of the Matile, dwarves like them, only dark-skinned rather than light, at their people’s embassy, while Gebram and his daughter take responsibility for Kyroun himself. But the arrival of the people of Fidi has triggered something that the people of Matile are unaware of - the god Legaba, still worshipped among the Uloans, has declared that Retribution Time has come, the time for Uloa to wage a full-scale assault on what remains of the Matile Mala Empire and destroy it utterly. And the Empire, though no one yet has spoken of it, stands almost defenseless, for the Jagisti have deserted them, and their priests and acolytes, who once could wield the magic of ashuma, are almost powerless.
But this is just the beginning of what awaits the failing kingdom of Matile Mala, and the strangers from Fidi with their powerful but mysterious new god.
Saunders’ first novel of Abengoni introduces a sweeping cast of men and gods inhabiting a world with a long and complex past into which many things, new and old may come. And through the great tapestry that is Abengoni run the themes of power and responsibility, choice and consequence, that must eventually be faced by every being, even the gods. I am anxiously awaiting the next volume of this tale.
