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Recommendations for African-Inspired works of Fantasy and Sci-Fi?

Eventua

Eventua

Just Me
Hello! :D

So, um, yes! I've noticed that many mainstream works of art and culture don't often use aspects of/have a basis in different African (particularly Sub-Saharan African) cultures.

Since the current project I'm working on is intended to draw most of its 'style' and themes from West African cultures and society (particularly the Akan and neighbouring tribes) with some degree of 'pan-africanism', I was curious as to what projects, stories, games and other forms of 'art' people can think of and recommend from their own experiences that draw heavily from different African cultures.

In particular if the work in question is specific in its focus, rather than general (since much like any region, the different cultures of Africa are quite different from each other and only have a degree of overlap).

Off the top of my head, the only works I can think of right now are the novel Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (which personally I didn't like that much? More from a writing style perspective) which uses a lot of aspects of the mythologies and religions of the different tribal groups in Nigeria as its main basis, and the in-progress animated series 'Spider Stories' by Central City Tower, which looks super awesome and appears to mainly be using a mixture of Akan and Yoruba culture?

EDIT: And just to clarify, I added 'Avatar the Last Airbender' to the tags because the aforementioned 'Spider Stories' cites it as being one of the main inspirations.
 
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You may be interested in what is called the "sword-and-soul" – fantasy stories in the same vein as sword-and-sorcery, but set in a non-stereotypical Africa with non-stereotypical African characters.
 
The Imaro stories by Charles R Saunders is basically about black Conan. Because Saunders got tired of being a subhuman savage in Howard's stories.
 
One important thing writing subsaharan fantasy is that they had their own unique versions of many familiar things that went beyond just different architecture. Look up Yoruba numeral system. They used a fascinating base 5 mathematics. Some other parts of Africa used base 2 maths similar to binary. They did not count like us. Subsaharan africa was not Europe or middle east with hotter climate. But they developed a unique parallel civilization.

http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/language/number/yoruba.html
Yoruba numerals
 
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all fictions said:
No, -funk are genres that specifically focus on non-white characters in a steampunk/dieselpunk setting, especially focusing on the imperialism and racism of those eras.
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You sure? I mean, we all know there's significant difference between non-white and African, and grouping that under the banner of '-funk' seems bizarre to me.
I mean, yeah, it's a neat pun. But I don't think that, for instance, fantasy rooted in Arabic culture rather than the very typical European perspective has anything to do with funk.
 
NMR-3 said:
You sure? I mean, we all know there's significant difference between non-white and African, and grouping that under the banner of '-funk' seems bizarre to me.
I mean, yeah, it's a neat pun. But I don't think that, for instance, fantasy rooted in Arabic culture rather than the very typical European perspective has anything to do with funk.
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Funk generally specifically refers to black characters. Other stuff has other names. Arabian Swords and Sorcery tends to go by Swords and Sandals, for example.
 
Is not "Swords and Sandals" 50s movies like Ben-Hur and Ten Commandments ? Basically Biblical events or Mediterranean world during antiquity.
 
You mentioned Lagoon but did not mention Who Fears Death by the same author. It's fantasy with some hints that it might actually be post-apocalyptic scifi.
 
Also, Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. It's kind of like Ancient Igbo Charles Charlene Xavier versus Immortal Death-Seeking Magneto Shadow King.

In my opinion, way better than the rest of that Patternmaster series but then again, I am Igbo and thus biased. And Old Octavia did her research.
 
RazorSmile said:
Also, Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. It's kind of like Ancient Igbo Charles Charlene Xavier versus Immortal Death-Seeking Magneto Shadow King.

In my opinion, way better than the rest of that Patternmaster series but then again, I am Igbo and thus biased. And Old Octavia did her research.
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Ah, interesting! I'll definitely check it out.

Out of interest, would you say that (from what you've read) most of the information available online is accurate? Or is there a tendency for exotification/inaccuracies/'guesses' to crop up?

So far in the research for my own projects I've tried to read more in the way of websites created by the people I'm researching - or at least the wider nation they're part of - rather than simply relying on the first results that come up in Google, but it's surprisingly difficult to find said sites or actually verify that they're accurate.

The other problem is that getting access to actual physical books on the subjects and cultures in question is... not easy, at the moment, and my finances wont really allow me to buy lots of eBooks.
 
Eventua said:
Ah, interesting! I'll definitely check it out.

Out of interest, would you say that (from what you've read) most of the information available online is accurate? Or is there a tendency for exotification/inaccuracies/'guesses' to crop up?

So far in the research for my own projects I've tried to read more in the way of websites created by the people I'm researching - or at least the wider nation they're part of - rather than simply relying on the first results that come up in Google, but it's surprisingly difficult to find said sites or actually verify that they're accurate.

The other problem is that getting access to actual physical books on the subjects and cultures in question is... not easy, at the moment, and my finances wont really allow me to buy lots of eBooks.
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I think without actually being in a region and interacting with locals the best you can hope for is technical accuracy. Actually getting the feel right for a place is impossible without having been there.

Molefi Asante and Cheikh Ante Diop are good sources. Take anything they say about Egypt and the Maghreb with a grain of salt. However they have done respectable work chronicling the history of Africa. Diop especially is a pioneer in this field and his work invaluable in learning about the kingdoms and cultures of Africa.

Also keep in mind history of Africa has become politicized and its not easy to separate the history from narrative being pushed.
 
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