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Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman
“I’m gon’ drive the evil out and send it back to Hell, where it belong!” – Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman: Freedom fighter. Psychic. Soldier. Spy. Something…more. Much more. In “MOSES: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman (Book 1: Kings * Book 2: Judges)”, the author masterfully transports you to a world of wonder…of horror…of amazing inventions, captivating locales and extraordinary people. In this novel of dark fantasy (with a touch of Steampunk), Harriet Tubman must match wits and power with the sardonic John Wilkes Booth and a team of hunters with powers beyond this world in order to save herself, her teenaged nephew, Ben and a little girl in her care – Margaret. But is anyone who, or what, they seem?
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 6, 2012
10 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Balogun Ojetade
93 books98 followersBalogun Ojetade is the author of the bestselling non-fiction books Afrikan Martial Arts: Discovering the Warrior Within, The Afrikan Warriors Bible, Surviving the Urban Apocalypse, The Urban Self Defense Manual and The Young Afrikan Warriors’ Guide to Defeating Bullies & Trolls.
He is one of the leading authorities on Afroretroism – film, fashion or fiction that combines African and / or African American culture with a blend of “retro” styles and futuristic technology, in order to explore the themes of tension between past and future and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. He writes about Afroretroism – Sword & Soul, Rococoa, Steamfunk and Dieselfunk at http://chroniclesofharriet.com/.
He is author of sixteen novels and gamebooks – MOSES: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman (Books 1 & 2); The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman: Freedonia; Redeemer; Once Upon A Time In Afrika; Fist of Afrika; A Single Link; Wrath of the Siafu; The Scythe; The Keys; Redeemer: The Cross Chronicles; Beneath the Shining Jewel; Q-T-Pies: The Savannah Swan Files (Book 0) and A Haunting in the SWATS: The Savannah Swan Files (Book 1); Siafu Saves the World; Siafu vs. The Horde; and Dembo’s Ditty – contributing co-editor of three anthologies: Ki: Khanga: The Anthology, Steamfunk and Dieselfunk and contributing editor of the Rococoa anthology and Black Power: The Superhero Anthology.
He is also the creator and author of the Afrofuturistic manga series, Jagunjagun Lewa (Pretty Warrior) and co-author of the Ngolo graphic novel.
Finally, he is co-author of the award winning screenplay, Ngolo and co-creator of Ki Khanga: The Sword and Soul Role-Playing Game, both with author Milton Davis.
Reach him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Afrikan.Mart... and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Baba_Balogun. Find his books on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Balogun-Ojetad....
He is one of the leading authorities on Afroretroism – film, fashion or fiction that combines African and / or African American culture with a blend of “retro” styles and futuristic technology, in order to explore the themes of tension between past and future and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. He writes about Afroretroism – Sword & Soul, Rococoa, Steamfunk and Dieselfunk at http://chroniclesofharriet.com/.
He is author of sixteen novels and gamebooks – MOSES: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman (Books 1 & 2); The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman: Freedonia; Redeemer; Once Upon A Time In Afrika; Fist of Afrika; A Single Link; Wrath of the Siafu; The Scythe; The Keys; Redeemer: The Cross Chronicles; Beneath the Shining Jewel; Q-T-Pies: The Savannah Swan Files (Book 0) and A Haunting in the SWATS: The Savannah Swan Files (Book 1); Siafu Saves the World; Siafu vs. The Horde; and Dembo’s Ditty – contributing co-editor of three anthologies: Ki: Khanga: The Anthology, Steamfunk and Dieselfunk and contributing editor of the Rococoa anthology and Black Power: The Superhero Anthology.
He is also the creator and author of the Afrofuturistic manga series, Jagunjagun Lewa (Pretty Warrior) and co-author of the Ngolo graphic novel.
Finally, he is co-author of the award winning screenplay, Ngolo and co-creator of Ki Khanga: The Sword and Soul Role-Playing Game, both with author Milton Davis.
Reach him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Afrikan.Mart... and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Baba_Balogun. Find his books on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Balogun-Ojetad....
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 26, 2013
I can honestly say that I've been waiting for this book for years. I first discovered fantasy & science fiction when I was 13 years old. Regular fiction was entertaining, but impossible flights of fancy captivated me the most. However, as I began to immerse myself in those genres it became glaringly obvious to me that the future (and even the past) contained few or no people of color. The African-American section of my local bookstores and libraries offered me three choices--beautifully written but tragic tales focusing on slavery and segregation (Alice Walker, Toni Morrison); sensationalized stories of the project or penthouse dwellers (Jerome E. Dickey, or Christian love stories. All of these genres are valuable because they speak to someone's real, lived experience. But none of them spoke to *me*. I was born and raised in MLK's birthplace so the legacy of slavery was no secret to me. However, as child of Generation Y, I went to school with and friends of all different races. I had hope that we would someday transcend our history, and I felt that my life was proof that being black in America was not an inevitable tragedy. Coming from a solidly working class family, I had no experience of the projects or the country clubs. And romance literature as a whole is too predictable for me.
The exceptions to these limited choices were the gumshoe mysteries penned by Walter Mosley, Octavia E. Butler's dystopic sci-fi, the lighthearted fiction of Pearl Cleage...and now Balogun Ojetade's exciting "steamfunk". This book imagines Harriet Tubman as a superhero of sorts, in a world where she and other "Gifted" fight for good or evil. What starts out as a simple kidnapping case evolves into a sinister threat against the country--and that's as far as I can go without any spoilers! Something like 90% of steampunk fiction takes place in Victorian era England, but moving the action to post-Civil War America makes the story fresh for that reason alone. In keeping with our country's rebellious spirit, every character has a strong personality that leaps off the page. There's a lot of rough and tumble action with fight scenes ripped out of a kung-fu movie. The pulp fiction sensibility keeps you turning pages and screams for a film adaptation (after "Django Unchained", I'm looking at you, Quentin Tarantino!) Best of all? I never could have predicted all of the twists and turns in the plot.
While I would have appreciated more character development and world building, this is still worth a read. I'm hoping that all of my questions will be answered in further installments. I plan to explore more of Mr. Ojetade's work and recommend that you do as well.
The exceptions to these limited choices were the gumshoe mysteries penned by Walter Mosley, Octavia E. Butler's dystopic sci-fi, the lighthearted fiction of Pearl Cleage...and now Balogun Ojetade's exciting "steamfunk". This book imagines Harriet Tubman as a superhero of sorts, in a world where she and other "Gifted" fight for good or evil. What starts out as a simple kidnapping case evolves into a sinister threat against the country--and that's as far as I can go without any spoilers! Something like 90% of steampunk fiction takes place in Victorian era England, but moving the action to post-Civil War America makes the story fresh for that reason alone. In keeping with our country's rebellious spirit, every character has a strong personality that leaps off the page. There's a lot of rough and tumble action with fight scenes ripped out of a kung-fu movie. The pulp fiction sensibility keeps you turning pages and screams for a film adaptation (after "Django Unchained", I'm looking at you, Quentin Tarantino!) Best of all? I never could have predicted all of the twists and turns in the plot.
While I would have appreciated more character development and world building, this is still worth a read. I'm hoping that all of my questions will be answered in further installments. I plan to explore more of Mr. Ojetade's work and recommend that you do as well.
November 10, 2013
Fantasy Review Barn
To the best of my knowledge what I just read is not a history book. I have checked a few other sources and found nothing to suggest that Harriet Tubman actually had any kind of extreme healing abilities. Nor could I find any reference of Stagecoach Mary having iron skin. An elaborate subway system crisscrossing the whole continent was likewise missing from my studies.
This book has a comic book feel (actually it would make a pretty cool comic), both in its quick pace and in set up. Apt, because the setup is X-Men in a post Civil War America. Tubman is one of many who are supernaturally ‘gifted,’ and in the opening scenes is hired by John Wilkes Booth to rescue his daughter. By taking the mission Harriet is pulled into an elaborate plot against both her and the country. The action in this book goes off like a machine gun, one scene after another with very little of its word count going toward anything else.
A person’s enjoyment of this book is therefore going to be dependent completely on their tolerance for martial arts, gun play, and pure poundings. A new larger than life historical character is introduced, his/her super power is shown, and a new action scene unfolds. Rince and repeat. For instance we first meet Stagecoach Mary fighting off a pack of werewolves for a bit before being rescued in Hollywood style by an airship she didn’t know was coming dropping a rope.
For the most part it worked for me. I enjoyed all the little historical plugs, most that I recognized and a few I had to look up. It’s over the top nature didn’t grow old, though had the book been a longer one it might have. Like many good action books there is an undercurrent of humor that keeps things from feeling too brutal. And a couple of the characters really stood out; I enjoyed Harriet throughout, and got a kick out of Mama Maybelle, a titan of a woman willing to do just about anything for her loved ones.
However, intentional or not, the fast pace left very little room for any kind of depth. One villain was introduced and defeated so quickly I wonder why he was included at all. Rapid action scenes start to run together. Where some characters stand out, I lost track of others even within the fifty pages they disappeared because I had nothing substantial to remember them by.
Not a bad book, it had many of the same trappings as other by-the-numbers steam punk tales, just with better diversity among its characters. At times I wish that some of the descriptions of various monsters were shorter and the time spent building some of the secondary characters a bit longer. But these action tales work best in small doses, which thankfully is what the book provides. It also ended on a cliffhanger, leaving the possibility of more to come. Conclusion? A bit rough, but an enjoyable outing.
3 stars
To the best of my knowledge what I just read is not a history book. I have checked a few other sources and found nothing to suggest that Harriet Tubman actually had any kind of extreme healing abilities. Nor could I find any reference of Stagecoach Mary having iron skin. An elaborate subway system crisscrossing the whole continent was likewise missing from my studies.
This book has a comic book feel (actually it would make a pretty cool comic), both in its quick pace and in set up. Apt, because the setup is X-Men in a post Civil War America. Tubman is one of many who are supernaturally ‘gifted,’ and in the opening scenes is hired by John Wilkes Booth to rescue his daughter. By taking the mission Harriet is pulled into an elaborate plot against both her and the country. The action in this book goes off like a machine gun, one scene after another with very little of its word count going toward anything else.
A person’s enjoyment of this book is therefore going to be dependent completely on their tolerance for martial arts, gun play, and pure poundings. A new larger than life historical character is introduced, his/her super power is shown, and a new action scene unfolds. Rince and repeat. For instance we first meet Stagecoach Mary fighting off a pack of werewolves for a bit before being rescued in Hollywood style by an airship she didn’t know was coming dropping a rope.
For the most part it worked for me. I enjoyed all the little historical plugs, most that I recognized and a few I had to look up. It’s over the top nature didn’t grow old, though had the book been a longer one it might have. Like many good action books there is an undercurrent of humor that keeps things from feeling too brutal. And a couple of the characters really stood out; I enjoyed Harriet throughout, and got a kick out of Mama Maybelle, a titan of a woman willing to do just about anything for her loved ones.
However, intentional or not, the fast pace left very little room for any kind of depth. One villain was introduced and defeated so quickly I wonder why he was included at all. Rapid action scenes start to run together. Where some characters stand out, I lost track of others even within the fifty pages they disappeared because I had nothing substantial to remember them by.
Not a bad book, it had many of the same trappings as other by-the-numbers steam punk tales, just with better diversity among its characters. At times I wish that some of the descriptions of various monsters were shorter and the time spent building some of the secondary characters a bit longer. But these action tales work best in small doses, which thankfully is what the book provides. It also ended on a cliffhanger, leaving the possibility of more to come. Conclusion? A bit rough, but an enjoyable outing.
3 stars
July 6, 2013
Fast-paced and engaging story featuring Harriet Tubman battling against the forces of evil as exemplified by Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War. Except it's not quite that simple. Stanton secretly has slave ancestry and the malevolent spirit of John Brown seeks revenge upon Tubman for not supporting his uprising. Unexpected twists and turns plus the presence of an African-American scientific and magical genius who has created a vast, literal, steam-powered underground railroad as well as a steam-powered dirigible make this story exciting and a fast page-turner that works well on an iPhone. Perhaps the only drawback is the loving attention to martial arts techniques as described in the fight scenes that seem a wee bit anachronistic, but that's a matter of personal taste. Others will love that aspect as well. I want to read more in this world!
Read
August 25, 2014Harriet Tubman is martial arts expert government agent who rescues the child of Secretary War Edwin Stanton at the request of John Wilkes Booth. We start with alternative history and from there we get the whole kitchen sink added one element at a time: super powers, anachronistic technology, clockwork tree creatures, zombies (ghuls, but yeah, zombies), a serial killer, were-coyotes, mythical heroes, and magic curses.
At first this seemed like world building, but soon it becomes clear it's ADD. This is the best and worst thing about the book depending on your point of view. Things are light and fast paced, but the story jumps from one set piece to the next regardless of whether the last bit got resolved. By the end we barely even see Harriet, and I lost track of what happened with the main conflict.
There's science fiction set in the 19th century and there is steampunk. This is steampunk, and you could make a drinking game out of the words steam, brass, chrome, and goggles. Despite having black characters and being set during the Civil War, slavery and racism are far from the worst things they encounter. They are acknowledged but Ojetade doesn't let it get in the way of the fun.
This has nothing to do with Ojetade's book, but I imagined how this kind of thing would have gone down in the early 90s. Most of the book would have been a heavy handed account of the horrors of slavery and racism, but with some sympathetic white folk shoehorned in so it didn't seem too militant. And white readers would pat themselves on the back for being progressive enough to read it, all the while feeling a bit guilty and unsettled.
I'm not going to lie and say we're in a post-racial society, but I'm glad that we're at a point where we can get black genre fiction without having the characters and stories be defined by white racism.
At first this seemed like world building, but soon it becomes clear it's ADD. This is the best and worst thing about the book depending on your point of view. Things are light and fast paced, but the story jumps from one set piece to the next regardless of whether the last bit got resolved. By the end we barely even see Harriet, and I lost track of what happened with the main conflict.
There's science fiction set in the 19th century and there is steampunk. This is steampunk, and you could make a drinking game out of the words steam, brass, chrome, and goggles. Despite having black characters and being set during the Civil War, slavery and racism are far from the worst things they encounter. They are acknowledged but Ojetade doesn't let it get in the way of the fun.
This has nothing to do with Ojetade's book, but I imagined how this kind of thing would have gone down in the early 90s. Most of the book would have been a heavy handed account of the horrors of slavery and racism, but with some sympathetic white folk shoehorned in so it didn't seem too militant. And white readers would pat themselves on the back for being progressive enough to read it, all the while feeling a bit guilty and unsettled.
I'm not going to lie and say we're in a post-racial society, but I'm glad that we're at a point where we can get black genre fiction without having the characters and stories be defined by white racism.
February 12, 2014
Despite the pedestrian title which sounds like something you'd only pick up during Black history month, Moses: The Chronicles of Harriett Tubman (Book I: KINGS) is a high energy alternate history, steamfunk novella set in post-Civil War/Reconstruction America featuring Harriet Tubman as a demon-slayer imbued with fantastical powers.
In Book I Harriett is called upon to rescue a kidnapped child which spawns a chain of events leading her on a chase across country, down into Mexico and into the heart of New Orleans to halt the spread of an evil entity identifying itself only by its initials.
The Chronicles of Harriett Tubman are only part of the vast Rite of Passage universe created by Balogun Ojetade, where the heroes, anti-heroes and villains are all equipped with supernatural powers, and in a world where knolls, liches, ghuls and voodoo are all too real, Harriett Tubman and her cohorts have to call upon all their capabilities to battle the immense rogues gallery of villains set against them.
The plot and pacing are well-timed and the fight and action sequences are so vivid that you'd swear you were watching a film rather than reading a book. There are however, some places in the story where the writing falls short, which is rather disappointing since the vast majority of it is so well-written.
The Chronicles of Harriett Tubman is a great read for those who enjoy steampunk, alternate history, horror and loads of action; and but for some of the jarring shifts in the prose on the OTHER SCI FI Magazine standard this would be a solid 14k, but as it stands it still garners a well-earned 10k rating.
http://glossi.com/PenelopeFlynn/77789...
In Book I Harriett is called upon to rescue a kidnapped child which spawns a chain of events leading her on a chase across country, down into Mexico and into the heart of New Orleans to halt the spread of an evil entity identifying itself only by its initials.
The Chronicles of Harriett Tubman are only part of the vast Rite of Passage universe created by Balogun Ojetade, where the heroes, anti-heroes and villains are all equipped with supernatural powers, and in a world where knolls, liches, ghuls and voodoo are all too real, Harriett Tubman and her cohorts have to call upon all their capabilities to battle the immense rogues gallery of villains set against them.
The plot and pacing are well-timed and the fight and action sequences are so vivid that you'd swear you were watching a film rather than reading a book. There are however, some places in the story where the writing falls short, which is rather disappointing since the vast majority of it is so well-written.
The Chronicles of Harriett Tubman is a great read for those who enjoy steampunk, alternate history, horror and loads of action; and but for some of the jarring shifts in the prose on the OTHER SCI FI Magazine standard this would be a solid 14k, but as it stands it still garners a well-earned 10k rating.
http://glossi.com/PenelopeFlynn/77789...
June 29, 2015
"Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman blends horror and steampunk to transport you to a world of wonder and illusion, and amazing inventions. It’s a world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and creatures from hell rise and walk the earth." Summaries like this are what drew me into wanting to read this book. I found this book on BookBub.com and purchased it at a discounted price; after checking the ratings and reviews on Goodreads.com, I figured that reading this book would be worth it, but I was wrong. The book starts off fast and full of action; it started off with so much promise and then after the first few chapters, I was confused. I'm not sure why any of what was happening was happening. This book is part of a series, a series that I will not continue to waste my time on. I'm all for creative liberties in writing fictional books, but this was too much for me and I was not pleased.
June 18, 2016
Relentless momentum and frequent plot-twists and historical surprises (a who's who of nineteenth century cameos). The print I read wasn't perfectly edited, and I wish that there had been a bit more in the way of 'down-time' with the characters that we might have gotten to know them a little better; but the story was a rollicking good adventure all the same, and I'll recommend this to anybody who asks!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews