10 awesome science fiction and fantasy books by Black authors
By Daniel Roman
2. Legacy of Orïsha by Tomi Adeyemi
When the first Legacy of Orïsha book, Children of Blood and Bone, came out in 2018, it pretty much broke the New York Times Bestseller list. It was a massive hit, in part because it tells a compelling tale of vengeance, fighting for freedom, and the return of magic to a people who had been robbed of it…and in part because it has an awesome African-inspired setting and worldbuilding that is through the roof. Thus far, the first two books are out, with a third planned to finish out the trilogy.
Orïsha mainly follows a young girl named Zélie Adebola, as she goes on a world-spanning quest to bring magic back to her people. When Zélie was still a child, a coup by a neighboring kingdom resulted in the death of all its magic users, called maji. Among those slain was Zélie’s mother. Years of suppression ensue, with the conquering monarchy going to any lengths it can to prevent magic from coming back to Zélie’s people.
Then Zélie comes of age, and realizes that there is a spark of magic within her. It’s not long before she’s drawn on an epic quest along with a rogue princess to restore magic to her subjugated people.
Zélie has the sort of fiery personality and drive that you’d expect from a YA action-fantasy heroine, and while quests for revenge and retribution are nothing new in fantasy, the excellent worldbuilding and setting that author Tomi Adeyemi so deftly draws us into sets these books apart from the crowd. Much of the worldbuilding and myth is drawn from the Yoruba tribe of Western Africa, and Adeyemi does a fantastic job of creating a story that feel at once familiar and unlike anything the genre had seen before.
