Zulu Heart returns to the 19th Century of Steven Barnes's justly acclaimed novel Lion's Blood, a brilliant alternate history in which black Africans have colonized the New World with white Europeans as their slaves.
As Zulu Heart opens, New World nobleman Kai ibn Jallaleddin is a senator of New Djibouti, an envied plantation owner, and a loving family man. His ex-slave and friend, the Irishman Aidan O'Dere, is on the Ouachita frontier, helping other ex-slaves build a settlement for themselves. But ex-slaves are always at risk, and an angry mob threatens Aidan, his family, and his entire village with slaughter or re-enslavement. Meanwhile, Kai is entangled in intrigues among not only his fellow senators, but the lords of Egypt and Abyssinia, who have sinister plans for the New World colonies. Pharaoh takes Kai's sister hostage to manipulate Kai, even as Aidan discovers his twin sister, lost since childhood, is the property of a powerful foe of New Djibouti. Aidan has a slight possibility of rescuing his beloved sister, and of helping Kai thwart his enemies, but the only chance of achieving these near-impossible goals requires that Aidan go undercover--a slave once more. --Cynthia Ward
Zulu Heart: A Novel of Slavery and Freedom in an Alternate America FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Imagine a 19th-century America colonized by Islamic Africans instead of Christian Europeans. Imagine an Old South dominated by African culture and tradition where European slaves work the fields and dream of freedom. Welcome to Steven Barnes's alternate history of the New World. Zulu Heart, the sequel to Barnes's critically acclaimed Lion's Blood, continues the story of two unlikely friends -- African nobleman Kai ibn Rashid and Aidan O'Dere, a former Irish slave -- who are traveling very different life paths. While Kai is trying to keep his southern estate, Dar Kush, out of a war between the world powers Egypt and Abyssinia as well as a civil war between New World colonies, Aidan is simply trying to stay alive -- and escape from bondage.
As tensions increase between world powers, it becomes evident that war is going to erupt in the New World. Egyptian ships are quietly massing in the harbors of New Djibouti, and after an attempt is made on Kai's life, he cannot trust anyone -- not even lifelong friends and his new Zulu wife. Aidan, struggling to make a life as a free man in the north, is called once again by his ex-master and best friend to help in a desperate scheme to stop the imminent bloodshed. But in order to achieve this, Aidan must again become a slaveﾽ
Fans of alternate American history novels like Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes trilogy and Harry Turtledove's Great War series should enjoy this insightful, complex saga of speculative fiction. Paul Goat Allen
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The year is 1294 - to Christians, 1877. Egypt's Pharaoh threatens war against Ethiopia's Empress and plans to embroil the New World in his cause. While the Northern colonists are subjects of the Pharaoh, Southern revolutionaries are loyal to the Empress." "Caught in the center of the storm is Kai ibn Rashid, married to the Empress's niece and lord of a vast Southern estate. A senator who only wants peace, Kai is opposed to the Pharaoh's war - a position that may cost him dearly, for assassins have targeted his family. Meanwhile, the New World's other major power, the unpredictable Zulu nation, has pressed Kai to accept their princess, the exquisite niece of Shaka Zulu, as his second wife. Tantalized by her beauty, Kai also fears that the princess is a spy with lethal plans." "Now in desperate need of help, Kai summons a childhood friend, the freed slave Aidan O'Dere, to go on a deadly mission. Aidan's reward is information to save his long-lost sister, Nessa, and safe passage home. Yet to succeed, Aidan must willingly submit himself to the greatest degradation he has ever known - the cruel yoke of slavery." With war looming and betrayal threatening on every side, failure will mean execution for Kai and Aidan. But will success cost even more? For by challenging the will of the Pharaoh, Kai could be signing his family's death warrants. And by aiding the South, Aidan could be keeping millions of whites in bondage.
FROM THE CRITICS
Locus - 3/2003
ﾽ...more adventure, intrigue, and romance into a vibrant world that is so utterly believable, so vivid and sensual, that it makes reality itself seem like the imagined realm.
Publishers Weekly
In this ambitious and absorbing sequel to Barnes's well-received alternate history, Lion's Blood (2002), the young Ethiopian nobleman and landholder Kai is now married and a father in Bilalistan (what we know as the southern United States). His Irish ex-slave, Aidan, is leading the perilous life of any freedman in a slave society. Complications arise when Kai takes as a second wife a high-ranking Zulu named Nandi, Aidan accidentally offends a black lady, and Egypt (the nominal overlord of Bilalistan) and Ethiopia threaten to go to war. At Kai's request, Aidan sells himself back into slavery to become a spy at the Egyptian court, while Kai deals with intrigues, assassins and suspected treachery from Nandi. Some readers may have a problem with the implausible time line (launched when Alexander the Great married an Egyptian princess) or some slightly hoary plot devices, such as Aidan's road to success lying through the bed of the Caliph's wife. But the magnificent abundance of detail of this alternate world carries the day, with considerable assistance from skilled characterization leaning to the romantic side. And it's hard to resist a story in which Aidan cruises into battle aboard the avatar of a Civil War monitor, crewed largely by Dahomeyan fighting women. One can find all kinds of pleasures in this book, and few of them guilty. (Mar. 19) FYI: Barnes is also the author of a stand-alone fantasy thriller, Charisma (Forecasts, June 3, 2002). He is married to writer Tananarive Due. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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