Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2020
192 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror.
IN AMERICA, DEMONS WEAR WHITE HOODS.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.
Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?
"[A] thrilling, provocative, and thoroughly badass fantasy...Lyrical interludes, mythicized 'oral histories' of Gullah traditions, and haunting retellings of African American folklore add rich texture throughout. Readers will be both captivated and entertained by this fast-paced alternate history." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Clark] cunningly and pithily weaves in African folklore, American history, and sociopolitical tropes that resonate with our present-day racial upheaval. Devotees of Lovecraft Country, Get Out, and other horror adventures with African American themes: Take note. Thrills, chills, macabre humor, and engaging heroines to root for: What more could a reader want?" - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This is a story of Black female power, drawn from both the old and new worlds, a tale that honors the Black American experience in all its complexity, and yet also delivers in its Lovecraftian delight." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Clark's latest is set in a visceral world, steeped in historical detail and full of engaging characters, that asks the question, 'Who is to blame for the hate that hate made?'" - Booklist (starred review)
"Brutal and hopeful, farcical and factual, Ring Shout is a book that speaks to the ridiculous and beastly nature of racism in a story that is difficult to put down." - Justina Ireland
"P. Djèlí Clark couldn't write a bad book if he tried. Ring Shout is fantastically fun even as its core is as serious as can be." - Victor LaValle
"Ring Shout is a wild ride into America's nightmarish history, a fantastical cross between Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer." - Annalee Newitz
"Slyly told and laced with dark humor, this haunting tale pulled me into a richly realized world I didn't want to leave." - Rivers Solomon
This information about Ring Shout was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
P. Djèlí Clark is the author of the novellas The Black God's Drums, winner of a 2019 Alex Award from the American Library Association; The Haunting of Tram Car 015; and A Dead Djinn in Cairo. His short stories have twice made the Locus Recommended Reading List and have appeared in online venues such as Fireside Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and in print anthologies including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is loosely associated with the quarterly FIYAH: A Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons. He currently resides in New England and ruminates on issues of diversity in speculative fiction.
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