VIA MERCHANTImaro by Charles R. Saunders
For fans of: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Nearly every list of the best fantasy books includes the Lord of the Rings series, but I was never one for following the crowd. Although we wouldn’t really have modern fantasy books without Tolkien’s work, out of all the classic epic fantasies out there, it’s Imaro that I wish more people knew about.
Imaro is what Charles Saunders called “sword and soul,” a branch of sword-and-sorcery fantasy with an emphasis on precolonial African and African diasporic folklore and culture. Think Conan the Barbarian or Tarzan but Black and riding war rhinos. The first of the Imaro books, released in 1981, collects several short stories about the trials and tribulations of the title character as a young man in Nyumbani, a fantasy version of Africa. As he battles his way across the landscape, he becomes a great warrior, loved and feared equally. It’s high fantasy with tons of swordplay and outlandish adventures.
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