Lion's Blood

By Steven Barnes,

Book cover of Lion's Blood: A Novel of Slavery and Freedom in an Alterative America

Book description

The year is 1279...or, to those who worship the son of Mary, 1863. Bordered by fierce Azteca to the south, the red men's nations of the far west, and the Viking empire in the north, Bilalistan is a vast, rich land adorned with inspiring mosques, Zulu kraals, and glorious Moorish…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Lion's Blood as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

When I picked up this book a couple of decades ago, I was blown away when I started reading. I’d never seen a story that presupposed a completely different background to America’s colonization—many alternate history books take place after Europeans colonized the Americas, so this was a fresh take on the “what if” genre.

This helped me see how the boundaries of history could be changed and shaped to fit other timelines and scenarios, and I loved seeing how various non-European cultures could be central in a reimagining of the world’s history.

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