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The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile
A Black nerd coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Boston about a boy who struggles to learn the truth behind his mother’s claims of otherworldly origins in the smoldering aftermath of the Civil Rights era and COINTELPRO's dying breaths.
Sean’s mother, Sojourner, consistently claims otherworldly origins—Saturn, specifically. A story he’s heard his entire life and never considered that it might be true until strange men intrude on his family’s lives. Complicating matters, his father, David, and his mother, were part of a Civil Rights era Black power group that captured the attention of the FBI.
A literal bombing put an exclamation point to the end of the organization. But as soon as Sean could read on his own, he immersed himself in science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, while largely ignoring the history of his people. That ignorance morphs into a disturbing proposition and learning the truth of his parents’ pasts could prove deadly.
Sean’s exploration introduces him to music, girls, delusions of privilege, and the thrills of revolution, all while becoming an adult. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile marries golden age sci-fi with the nostalgia of roller skates, funk, and first love.
Sean’s mother, Sojourner, consistently claims otherworldly origins—Saturn, specifically. A story he’s heard his entire life and never considered that it might be true until strange men intrude on his family’s lives. Complicating matters, his father, David, and his mother, were part of a Civil Rights era Black power group that captured the attention of the FBI.
A literal bombing put an exclamation point to the end of the organization. But as soon as Sean could read on his own, he immersed himself in science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, while largely ignoring the history of his people. That ignorance morphs into a disturbing proposition and learning the truth of his parents’ pasts could prove deadly.
Sean’s exploration introduces him to music, girls, delusions of privilege, and the thrills of revolution, all while becoming an adult. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile marries golden age sci-fi with the nostalgia of roller skates, funk, and first love.
180 pages, Paperback
First published April 22, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 9, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and CLASH Books for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own.
Since I began reviewing NetGalley, I have experienced a lot of new genres and new authors that I might overlook if I was just standing in a bookstore. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile caught me by the title. A Sci-Fi Fantasy/New Adult/Literary fiction hitting bookstores this April.
Book description: A Black nerd coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Boston about a boy who struggles to learn the truth behind his mother’s claims of otherworldly origins in the smoldering aftermath of the Civil Rights era and COINTELPRO's dying breaths.
It did take a while for me to become invested in the storyline, but I did like the writing and the characterization. At fewer than 200 pages, the relationship between Sean and his mother, Sojourner, was the true gem of the novel. It was good for me to get out of my comfort zone. Days later, I am still thinking about the ending of the book.
TheQueenofSaturnandthePrinceinExile #NetGalley
Expected Publication 22/04/25
Goodreads Review 06/03/25
Since I began reviewing NetGalley, I have experienced a lot of new genres and new authors that I might overlook if I was just standing in a bookstore. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile caught me by the title. A Sci-Fi Fantasy/New Adult/Literary fiction hitting bookstores this April.
Book description: A Black nerd coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Boston about a boy who struggles to learn the truth behind his mother’s claims of otherworldly origins in the smoldering aftermath of the Civil Rights era and COINTELPRO's dying breaths.
It did take a while for me to become invested in the storyline, but I did like the writing and the characterization. At fewer than 200 pages, the relationship between Sean and his mother, Sojourner, was the true gem of the novel. It was good for me to get out of my comfort zone. Days later, I am still thinking about the ending of the book.
TheQueenofSaturnandthePrinceinExile #NetGalley
Expected Publication 22/04/25
Goodreads Review 06/03/25
April 26, 2025
Really quick, enjoyable read. I wish it had been drawn out just a little more, and the coming-of-age plotline had been meshed with the conspiracy/surveillance plot a little better. But otherwise I liked it a lot.
September 16, 2025
The style of this book is so incredibly impactful. The vignette-esque style that takes you through Sean’s life as it contrasts to the lives of his parents or to the larger political landscape, creates almost a false sense of comfort. I spent so much of the book looking forward to when Sojourner’s past would be revealed, and it left me unprepared for the ending. The ending hits very hard against the rest of the book, not to say the rest is unimportant. But there is something about the innocence of Sean living as a child to then be confronted so violently be the horrific racism of America. And those last two pages. This author really knew what he was doing and what message he wanted to send.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 12, 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: A Black nerd coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Boston about a boy who struggles to learn the truth behind his mother’s claims of otherworldly origins in the smoldering aftermath of the Civil Rights era and COINTELPRO's dying breaths.
Sean’s mother, Sojourner, consistently claims otherworldly origins—Saturn, specifically. A story he’s heard his entire life and never considered that it might be true until strange men intrude on his family’s lives. Complicating matters, his father, David, and his mother, were part of a Civil Rights era Black power group that captured the attention of the FBI.
A literal bombing put an exclamation point to the end of the organization. But as soon as Sean could read on his own, he immersed himself in science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, while largely ignoring the history of his people. That ignorance morphs into a disturbing proposition and learning the truth of his parents’ pasts could prove deadly.
Sean’s exploration introduces him to music, girls, delusions of privilege, and the thrills of revolution, all while becoming an adult. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile marries golden age sci-fi with the nostalgia of roller skates, funk, and first love.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Coming of age in 1970s Murruhkuh was pretty awful. The nightmare of Watergate and the vileness of the people who supported Nixon and then gave us the Reagan revolution was, and I say this from my own personal experience of doing it, nightmarish...conform or suffer is not new to now, nor was it new to the Nixon trauma years, nor to McCarthyism in the 1950s, nor to...you get the drift.
Always feeling torn and at sea, also not new, as you're told one thing is true but it sure doesn't look like it is has a powerful emotional cost. Paying that cost is Sean's burden. As a Black teen his emotional bills are so much more immense than any my gay atheist, but white, ass had to pay.
Sean and I shared the burden of crazy mothers. Saturn has no crust, ma'am, icy or hot or rocky...just ain't one for your people to have dug themselves into. So while my own mother was a religious nut with weird ideas about her god, her delusions were decidedly less...outré so were easier to hide.
Sean's Dad doing the good work he did to help the increasingly re-oppressed after the Civil Rights era's violent and ongoing denial and retraction of gains made impressed me. The sadness of his mother's psychotic break was intense, but I never read it as anything but psychosis. I did not question the source of the break but the sci-fi clothes she put on it were mostly just reasons to feel sadder for Sean as the coming-of-age we all must do to establish our adult selves blew his happy bubble up.
I'll call it an SF novel mostly because Sean himself needs that genre track to make his reality bearable. It's more a story about how people urgently need their stories to cope with life, and the best place to find the materials you make those stories will always be stories already told.
It's always tough to find a path through the horrors of life. This is the story of a boy becoming a man without enough of a story to hang onto, and how much that cost him in the end. Could not be more rageful, more unblinkingly aware and accusatory of the racism our country refuses to renounce and stop using to harm everyone.
Under two hundred pages of honest reflection on how each Black man is broken: By design.
The Publisher Says: A Black nerd coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Boston about a boy who struggles to learn the truth behind his mother’s claims of otherworldly origins in the smoldering aftermath of the Civil Rights era and COINTELPRO's dying breaths.
Sean’s mother, Sojourner, consistently claims otherworldly origins—Saturn, specifically. A story he’s heard his entire life and never considered that it might be true until strange men intrude on his family’s lives. Complicating matters, his father, David, and his mother, were part of a Civil Rights era Black power group that captured the attention of the FBI.
A literal bombing put an exclamation point to the end of the organization. But as soon as Sean could read on his own, he immersed himself in science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, while largely ignoring the history of his people. That ignorance morphs into a disturbing proposition and learning the truth of his parents’ pasts could prove deadly.
Sean’s exploration introduces him to music, girls, delusions of privilege, and the thrills of revolution, all while becoming an adult. The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile marries golden age sci-fi with the nostalgia of roller skates, funk, and first love.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Coming of age in 1970s Murruhkuh was pretty awful. The nightmare of Watergate and the vileness of the people who supported Nixon and then gave us the Reagan revolution was, and I say this from my own personal experience of doing it, nightmarish...conform or suffer is not new to now, nor was it new to the Nixon trauma years, nor to McCarthyism in the 1950s, nor to...you get the drift.
Always feeling torn and at sea, also not new, as you're told one thing is true but it sure doesn't look like it is has a powerful emotional cost. Paying that cost is Sean's burden. As a Black teen his emotional bills are so much more immense than any my gay atheist, but white, ass had to pay.
Sean and I shared the burden of crazy mothers. Saturn has no crust, ma'am, icy or hot or rocky...just ain't one for your people to have dug themselves into. So while my own mother was a religious nut with weird ideas about her god, her delusions were decidedly less...outré so were easier to hide.
Sean's Dad doing the good work he did to help the increasingly re-oppressed after the Civil Rights era's violent and ongoing denial and retraction of gains made impressed me. The sadness of his mother's psychotic break was intense, but I never read it as anything but psychosis. I did not question the source of the break but the sci-fi clothes she put on it were mostly just reasons to feel sadder for Sean as the coming-of-age we all must do to establish our adult selves blew his happy bubble up.
I'll call it an SF novel mostly because Sean himself needs that genre track to make his reality bearable. It's more a story about how people urgently need their stories to cope with life, and the best place to find the materials you make those stories will always be stories already told.
It's always tough to find a path through the horrors of life. This is the story of a boy becoming a man without enough of a story to hang onto, and how much that cost him in the end. Could not be more rageful, more unblinkingly aware and accusatory of the racism our country refuses to renounce and stop using to harm everyone.
Under two hundred pages of honest reflection on how each Black man is broken: By design.
July 4, 2025
This is a short novel with a lot packed inside. It's a coming of age with metaphors aplenty, fueled by life in a world where people hate one another for being different and pretend that they don't...
Sean grows up, a little nerdy, but with good friends, collecting comics and books and a few old records along the way. As we learn about him, laughing along as his mother, Soujourner, continueds to call him "My Prince," regardless of the situation, he starts to grow. Things are happening for him, things born of a bright essence inside that he did not realize he possessed.
There is history here, civil rights, violence, government men in black suits and cars that are not what they seem, feeling way-too timely in today's atmosphere.
My only complaint about this nove is that I feel like it's going to be the complete story, but it feels (in the ending) like the prologue to something bigger that, at least for now, appears to be up to the reader's imagination. Great story, reads very quickly while cutting deep. Highly recommended.
Sean grows up, a little nerdy, but with good friends, collecting comics and books and a few old records along the way. As we learn about him, laughing along as his mother, Soujourner, continueds to call him "My Prince," regardless of the situation, he starts to grow. Things are happening for him, things born of a bright essence inside that he did not realize he possessed.
There is history here, civil rights, violence, government men in black suits and cars that are not what they seem, feeling way-too timely in today's atmosphere.
My only complaint about this nove is that I feel like it's going to be the complete story, but it feels (in the ending) like the prologue to something bigger that, at least for now, appears to be up to the reader's imagination. Great story, reads very quickly while cutting deep. Highly recommended.
October 25, 2024
The story revolves around a boy, who has grew up listening to his mother's ridiculous stories about being some otherworldly creatures. He has always thought about those stories as the product of her imagination, but the story starts to be distorted when the cracks in reality appears. He has lived all his teenage years under the shelter of his parents, having a privileged life, pursuing an innocent love, now faces the gruesome reality of terror as faced by black people.
The story is well-written and I was firmly intrigued by the character of sojourner. Her story is truly fascinating and saddening. The dialogues are well-intended, the only query I faced was the awkward scene of intimate connection between Sean and his lover. I didn't felt that the scene needed to be there.
Anyone looking for a good science thriller with an in-depth background of characters perspective and the whys of their perceptions, they can read this story.
The story is well-written and I was firmly intrigued by the character of sojourner. Her story is truly fascinating and saddening. The dialogues are well-intended, the only query I faced was the awkward scene of intimate connection between Sean and his lover. I didn't felt that the scene needed to be there.
Anyone looking for a good science thriller with an in-depth background of characters perspective and the whys of their perceptions, they can read this story.
June 1, 2025
A short book with a lot of heart.
This is a story about a young man growing up in the early seventies. The author does incredible character work, drawing the outlines of complex people with few initial strokes, adding nuance as the story goes. It works amazing well, and the reader, or at least this reader felt he knew the character intimately by the time the story was done.
Sean is our protagonist, and he's interesting and through the story he learns a lot about who his parents are, and through that, who he is. The book builds on the author's strengths as he showed in Lightning Wears a Red Cape, showing us how who a character is affects how they react to their environment. As Sean's life begins to spiral out of control, we understand his motivations, and those of the people around him.
An excellent book, and heartfelt.
This is a story about a young man growing up in the early seventies. The author does incredible character work, drawing the outlines of complex people with few initial strokes, adding nuance as the story goes. It works amazing well, and the reader, or at least this reader felt he knew the character intimately by the time the story was done.
Sean is our protagonist, and he's interesting and through the story he learns a lot about who his parents are, and through that, who he is. The book builds on the author's strengths as he showed in Lightning Wears a Red Cape, showing us how who a character is affects how they react to their environment. As Sean's life begins to spiral out of control, we understand his motivations, and those of the people around him.
An excellent book, and heartfelt.
April 23, 2025
*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book!*
While I was immensely intrigued by the setting of the book and the blurring boundary between science fiction and fiction, my ever growing dislike for the main character marred the reading experience for me. The world building was left undiscovered, the story petered out and the majority of characters were either one-dimensional or too opaque. The coming of age aspect was there but also weird, the storylines with systemic racism and police brutality are realistic and important but in the end futile?
I might not have been in the right headspace for the book but it left me disappointed.
2.5 stars
While I was immensely intrigued by the setting of the book and the blurring boundary between science fiction and fiction, my ever growing dislike for the main character marred the reading experience for me. The world building was left undiscovered, the story petered out and the majority of characters were either one-dimensional or too opaque. The coming of age aspect was there but also weird, the storylines with systemic racism and police brutality are realistic and important but in the end futile?
I might not have been in the right headspace for the book but it left me disappointed.
2.5 stars
May 13, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Clash Books for gifting me an early copy of this book!
My Thoughts:
This was a quick but impactful read. I really loved the main character and enjoyed the coming-of-age elements. Part of me wishes the historical/social justice elements had been explored further or that the story had been longer because I really wanted to see more of that side of things. I did love that the main character lived a life where he was sheltered from the world’s hate. When he’s finally put face to face with what his parents grew up with, it made that moment so much more painful.
I had to sit with the ending for a bit, trying to determine if I interpreted it the way that was intended, but honestly, whether it was real, imagined, or metaphor, I still felt it was the perfect ending. All in all, I thought this was an excellent book. I look forward to reading more from this author!
My Thoughts:
This was a quick but impactful read. I really loved the main character and enjoyed the coming-of-age elements. Part of me wishes the historical/social justice elements had been explored further or that the story had been longer because I really wanted to see more of that side of things. I did love that the main character lived a life where he was sheltered from the world’s hate. When he’s finally put face to face with what his parents grew up with, it made that moment so much more painful.
I had to sit with the ending for a bit, trying to determine if I interpreted it the way that was intended, but honestly, whether it was real, imagined, or metaphor, I still felt it was the perfect ending. All in all, I thought this was an excellent book. I look forward to reading more from this author!
August 11, 2025
The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile by Errick Nunnally is a short novel that hits hard. Taking place in 1970s Boston, it’s the story of a Black youth coming of age and finding out secrets about his parents’ past. It’s a science fiction story that would have worked well with the New Wave and could easily be considered a dangerous vision. The characters’ stories pull the reader in and plays with the heart strings. Nunnally’s storytelling is tempered and doesn’t reveal too much too soon. There are heartbreaking moments in this story but also the kind of nostalgia makes for a great summer read.
October 20, 2025
Errick Nunnally's short novel expertly mixes coming-of-age innocence, turbulent American history, and science-fictional elements, and does it all with a breakneck pace. Sean Lenun is so authentically drawn that this reader couldn't help wondering how many details were mined from the author's own youth, while other characters, like Sean's enigmatic mother Sojourner and their family's activist friend Rome, will stay with you long after you've turned the final page. Nunnally is an author to watch, and though it's not his first novel, THE QUEEN OF SATURN AND THE PRINCE IN EXILE is a trumpet fanfare of things to come.
July 14, 2025
This book caught my eye in the bookstore and I needed a short trip read, but I had no idea what I was getting into. The uneasiness and dread that creeps in through the 163 pages of this book is super captivating. Great coming of age story with some background on post Civil Rights Boston. I’d have loved this even more if it was longer and now I’m down a rabbit hole exploring the history of Black separatism and COINTELPRO in Roxbury!
March 16, 2025
So much is lost from the historical fiction knowledge in this book by adding the sci-fi element. I'm not sure if it really is a sci-fi element or a traumatic brain injury result of a bomb that is not well explained.
This story could have been a great educational piece about the time of the BPD and GIP, but it's lost.
This story could have been a great educational piece about the time of the BPD and GIP, but it's lost.
April 23, 2025
“Hello, my prince,” is how the main character’s mom addresses him, and with this simple and unusual endearment, Nunnally weaves an extraordinary coming-of-age tale. Hints of supernatural, tragic fall-out from the civil rights movement, a delightful love of comics, and killer opening chapter…this book will hold you from beginning to blazing end. Highly recommend.
August 24, 2025
Whoever edited this needs to be hit with a broomstick. A traditionally published novella should not read like an early draft. Interesting ideas and good potential, but the editor really let Nunnally down. We get zero answers on the culture and planet Sojourner comes from and what powers she and Sean have.
July 6, 2025
I’m pissed this wasn’t longer. For all its comic book talk it felt like I read the novella-ed version of a first issue of a very interesting comic. I coulda read a couple hundred more pages. Hope to see more from this author.
November 12, 2024
Can't recommend this book enough.
January 28, 2025
Thank you Netgalley and CLASH Books for the arc copy in exchange for my honest review.
Overall it was fine, but it felt a little rushed.
Overall it was fine, but it felt a little rushed.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews