In the 15th century on the African continent the young prince Changa Diop flees his homeland of Kongo, vowing to seek revenge for the death of his father and free his family and people from the foul sorcerer Usenge. He survives slavery and the fighting pits of Mogadishu, eventually becoming a merchant adventurer whose extraordinary skills and determination makes his a legend. From the Swahili merchant cities of Mombasa and Sofala to the magnificent Middle Kingdom, Changa and his crew experience adventures beyond the imagination. Despite his reputation, Changa will not rest until he has fulfilled his promise to his people. The anchors are lifted and the sails are dropped. Let the safari begin!
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In 2005 Milton Davis decided to gather hundred of pages of unfinished manuscripts and pursue a lifelong dream of completing a novel. He fulfilled that dream in 2008 with the release of Meji Book One through his own company, MVmedia. Since that time Milton had released four more novels; Meji Book Two, Changa's Safari, Changa's Safari Volume Two and A Debt To Pay. Each book had been well received by sword and sorcery fans throughout the world. Milton Davis has also been credited in leading the revival of Sword and Soul, a heroic fiction subgenre created by Charles R.Saunders, author of Imaro and Dossouye. Milton and Charles Saunders combined talents to release Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, in 2011 to excellent reviews.
Milton currently resides in the Metro Atlanta with his wife and children. He continues to work as a chemist while finally enjoying his passion for writing.
It is the opening of Changa's Safari that grabs me and let's me know I got a unique book in my hands. Any beginning that starts out like a movie on paper has got my attention. Think Sinbad the Sailor or Pirates of the Caribbean and you've got the tone of this novel. The first story is a classic High Adventure worthy of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. Filled with amazing supporting characters and snippets of their background, Changa's crew is ready for anything that comes their way. I love the whole book and the preview of the second novel will have you begging for more. Plus, the introduction by award winning author Charles R. Saunders, creator of Imaro is a good lead as well. If you are a fan of Sword and Sorcery or just like good storytelling, then this is your book. Changa's Safari does not disappoints and flows evenly... Ah!- a perfect Safari... Bravo, Changa, Bravo!!
Very entertaining reading. Milton Davis paints an interesting picture of the wealth and power of East African coastal cities at the height of the spice trade.
I ran across this title by accident, but it has become one of my favorite reads in recent memory. Changa's Safari is wonderful Sword & Sorcery storytelling set in a world right before our eyes but missed by all but a few. I was captured by the world and the characters from the very start and thoroughly entertained by the authors style and imagination. You can tell that Davis cares for these characters. There is one scene where the group suffers an attack and several porters are lost - Davis actually takes a moment to convey the grief over their loss- and you feel it. That is some wonderful writing. His characters are powerful, heroic and human. Changa is more than a sword-swinging action hero, he is a leader of men, men with families and responsibilities. He has to save the world from a demonic invasion, bring as many of these men home as he can,and still turn a profit at the end of the day. Changa's Safari is a wonderful book and I cant recommend it enough!
I like this book because it is full of action and adventure. Never a dull moment. I really enjoy Changa as a character. Sure, he's a hero but he's also a merchant who is driven by the prospect of making a profit. I dig the art within the book. I wish more fantasy novels added art inside, so I'm really glad this title did. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fast-paced epics.
Changa's Safari takes the style of Robert E. Howard's historical and sword and sorcery adventures and applies it to a totally unique band of characters. There's Changa, the Bakongo Sindbad-type leader, exiled from his native land and hunted by demons hot on his trail, unleashed by a vengeful shaman, the beautiful but strong willed sorceress who has spurned the ruler of Great Zimbabwe, The Tuareg, a veiled Muslim warrior vowed to silence who does all the talking he needs to with his swords, the eager prince Zakee, and weathered sailor Mikaili.
The book is presented as a collection of novellas chronicling the adventures of Changa and his companions as they command a fleet of trading dhows. Like the Arabian Nights, each new exploit spawns more adventures, culminating in what I personally felt was the most compelling episode, an excursion into China with real-life voyager Zheng He. In the last episode Changa must rescue the young emperor of China from a force of Mongols massing beyond the Great Wall.
Changa's Safari doesn't waste any time with an expository origin, but plunges the reader right into the middle of the action just as Howard's Conan books did, leaving it to the reader to piece together the various characters' histories from tidbits that come to light as the book progresses. At times this is a little frustrating as it reads like you missed an installment, but for the most part it plays out fine. The writing is tight and well paced, the dialogue punchy, and the action imaginative and exciting. I love learning as I'm reading and Changa's Safari taught me a great deal about African and Chinese folklore, yet the lessons didn't detract from or interrupt the flow of the story.... It simply enhanced the telling, bolstering the reader's belief in the fictional world, as all good research should. There was even a handy glossary of non-English terms included in the back, though there were a couple ommissions I would've liked to have seen in there ( I didn't know what an orinka was for instance, though it became readily apparent in the course of the story).
I always wondered why you don't typically see non-white adventurers of the Conan or Tarzan mold pop up in modern pulp fiction. Now I don't have to any more. Mr. Davis has created a band of worthy companions and made me a fan of sword and soul.
Eager to see where he takes it in book two.Read more ›
