Moon Witch, Spider King

Moving, vivid, and thought-provoking . . . brilliant

Buzzfeed

James masterfully flips the first instalment on its head . . . [A] titanic story of empire, adventure and power

Esquire

Told with James' inimitable linguistic verve . . . Riotous, ultraviolent, dazzlingly inventive

Literary Hub

Even more gripping and inventive than its predecessor . . . like Tolkien on ayahuasca

Observer

A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made, with language as powerful as Angela Carter's

Neil Gaiman

James cements his status as a wildly inventive and lyrical storyteller

Financial Times

An exhilarating tour de force . . . [James] establishes a new vision for the trilogy as a whole and confirms Dark Star as a true epic

John Burnside

Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King are wildly inventive, genre-defining works of fiction on the level of The Lord Of The Rings and the Broken Earth trilogy that deserve to be studied, dissected, and argued over

AV Club

James once again shattered my expectations . . . Moon Witch, Spider King is a breathtaking book, one that functions as well as a standalone as it does a sequel . . . This is a novel that begs to be read in one sitting

NPR

This novel's prose style, inspired by the grammar of African languages, has an intoxicating swagger and energy

Slate

James is one of the finest writers at work today, and Moon Witch, Spider King is a complex, enthralling novel. It is also utterly uncompromising, a book which the reader must meet on its own terms

Toronto Star

An epic fable drenched in African mythology. This is work that both meets the immersive worldbuilding standard in books by Tolkien and Martin and brings to the genre a voice unlike anything seen before . . . It sets readers up for what will undoubtedly be a superb finale

The Boston Globe

A fantastical epic that draws on African mythology

The New York Times

Booker winner James's African-inspired imaginary kingdoms mark the series out from the usual run of epic fantasies, but his uniquely supple, powerful style is even more distinctive

The Guardian

An imaginative story that advances the trilogy in a satisfying way, deepening and expanding an already epic world

Time