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Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes
01/03/2004 . Source: Paul Hanley 
pub: Aspect Science Fiction/Times Warner. 600 page paperback. Price: $ 5.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 0-446-61221-9. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.twobookmark.com
Steven Barnes's 'Lion's Blood' is an epic alternative history. His 'what if?' is that it is Africans, rather than Europeans, who discovered and colonised North America.
The Europeans were virtually wiped out by plague and it is therefore African civilisations and Islam which have opened up the New World. It is a rich, multi-layered tale of an Irish peasant boy, Aidan, who is captured by slavers who burn his village and kill his father.
He is shipped over to the New World where he is sold with his mother to slave on a plantation. It is an adventure story but much, much more.
Steven Barnes creates an heroic scale a colonial world which has slave plantations like the old South but ruled by African masters and worked by their down-trodden European slaves.
This alternate world is a great deal more vibrant than merely history turned upside down. It is told from the viewpoints of two friends: Aidan the Irish slave and that of his master's younger son, Kai, as they grow from children to adults. It is an imaginative story fully peopled with well rounded, three-dimensional characters set against the exotic backdrop of Bilalistan, as this Islamic America is known.
It has palaces, castles, kraals, mosques and external enemies such as the Aztecs and Norsemen. Barnes skilfully brings his whole world to life by including details of architecture, religion, economics, poetry, philosophy, fashion and African and Irish history, but does so with a light touch which enriches the story whilst maintaining its human interest.
The main characters grow in depth as they age and become more involved with women, politics and their wider world. Barnes depicts the nastier more brutal side of life as well as romance, honour, humour and gallantry as this world comes under pressure from war, slave revolts and changing times.
It is a story told with passion and compassion. Barnes sets a very high benchmark for others writing in the speculative genre to match.
This book is an excellent, well-written story and thoroughly recommended. It is thought provoking as well as absorbing.
Paul Hanley
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