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The Last Pantheon by Tade Thompson and Nick Wood

NewCon Press, 2024, 128 p (including 1 p Introduction by Tade Thompson, 2 p In Memoriam (of Nick Wood,) 1 p About the Authors, 2 p Genesis of the Pantheon, 3 p Interview with Tade Thompson, 3 p Building Super-Heroes and 3 p The Last Word on the Pantheon. Illustrated by Tade Thompson. Reviewed for ParSec 11.

This book is in part an In Memoriam for Nick Wood, who died in 2023. So it goes. Fellow author Thompson and he had an admiration for African superheroes of the 1970s like South Africa’s Mighty Man and Nigeria’s Power Man (who are name-checked in the story.) Together they wrote The Last Pantheon as a kind of homage and it was published in the collection AfroSFv2. Thompson’s Introduction here says this edition was more how they first imagined it would be, a short and sharp illustrated book wearing Silver Age bona fides on its sleeve. The illustrations were provided by Thompson himself, in his words a motivated amateur artist.

The story features Black Power (now using the name Sipho Cele) and Pan-African (Tope Adedoyin.) Though Pan-African refers to Black Power as brother they have been antagonists at various times over the years since they fled to Earth on a spaceship a very long time ago. Black Power can fly and move very quickly, Pan-African levitates, can read minds (and sometimes influence them) and is surrounded by a limited force-field. As the meat of the story unfolds their past is outlined in memories and flashbacks in one of which Black Power wonders at his anatomical and DNA similarities with humans. The story the book tells ranges over how they intervened (or failed to) at important moments in, mostly recent, African history – the deaths of Patrice Lumumba, Dag Hammarskjöld and Murtala Mohammed, the Sharpeville massacre – but also encounters with Shaka Zulu and a certain primate in 15,000 BP.

Black Power has always been on the side of law and order and Pan-African more or less the opposite. The last time they had clashed, the atmosphere over the Sahara was so disturbed it began to snow. In the aftermath Pan-African turned himself in. At this story’s start he is being released from prison after serving his time. Soon he is on a TV programme phone-in being interviewed by journalist Elizabeth Kokoro to explain his career choice. Black Power comes on the line. The ensuing conversation reveals their antipathies. Kokoro (who it’s later revealed has an extremely expensive brain implant connecting her directly to the internet) is amused by their verbal sparring but is then startled by Pan-African telling her the old comics featuring Black Power were propaganda, funded by the CIA and dosed with chemicals that may have been mind-altering. (Asides such as this help to provide an oblique critique of colonialism and its effects.) The interview, though, has laid the groundwork for the superheroes to meet in a televised last battle.

The novel has many grace notes, including a knowing nod to The Incredible Hulk, but, oddly, a scene near the end where Pan-African meets a pair called Nick Wood and Tade Thompson who are to write the graphic novel of the last encounter. A meta-fictional step too far?

For fans of superheroes there are plenty scenes of the pair demonstrating their powers but the structure and treatment, the characterisation, will also gratify appreciators of more literary virtues.

The illustrations are not (as Thompson warned us) up to comic standards, but neither are they crude.

I doubt anyone reading The Last Pantheon will have any cause for complaint.

The following did not appear in the published review.

Pedant’s corner:- Thompson’s In Memoriam of Wood is attributed to “Tade Thomson” (Tade Thompson,) “both victims and perpetuators” (x2, perpetrators,) low lives (usually lowlifes,) Jonnie Walker (it was whisky, so, Johnnie Walker.) “She wore shorts and burdened under a backpack” (She wore shorts and was burdened … ?) “Once the settled in a price” (Once they settled on,) staunching (stanching,) a missing full stop. “‘Thembeka, some back!’” (‘come back’ makes more sense,) “ a twelve miles journey” (a twelve mile journey,) “onto the stationery boy” (stationary,) “a chair in the next table” (at the next table,) Thendeka (several times, but elsewhere usually spelled Thembeka,) a line break after two thirds of the line, “the corpses ragged head and body wounds” (corpses’,) “where the chances for collateral damage was less” (where the chances … were less,) “far side of he hall” (of the hall.) “He out a cowhide covered shaft” (He pulled out a …,) bonafides (bona fides,) Addidas (Adidas,) “knew his presence has been marked” (had been marked.) In ‘About the Authors’; “in ddition to” (in addition to.) In ‘Building Super-heroes’; “is being control of” (is being in control of) “the character’s and their supporting cast” (characters.)

 

ParSec 11

The latest edition of ParSec magazine (no 11) is available for purchase. At £5.99. It’s a bargain.

This edition contains no less than five of my reviews.

The Last Pantheon by Tade Thompson and Nick Wood.

The Phoenix Keeper by S A MacLean.

Dark Shepherd by Fred Gambino.

Sparks of Bright Matter by Leeanne O’Donnell.

And, last but not least, Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Those reviews will appear here after a decent interval.

 

More for ParSec

The latest books I have received for review for online SF magazine ParSec arrived this week.

They are The Last Pantheon by Tade Thompson and Nick Wood and Dark Shepherd by Fred Gambino.

I have read books by Thompson and Wood as individuals but not in collaboration. Thompson is Nigerian and Wood South African. It therefore make sense that The Last Pantheon has African (super)heroes. The novel contains illustrations.

Fred Gambino is new to me.

I assume the reviews will appear in ParSec’s issue 11.

This Year’s BSFA Awards Short Lists

The lists have been published here.

Amazingly, of the best novel list I’ve read four out of the five.

Chris Beckett’s Daughter of Eden, Dave Hutchinson’s Europe in Winter, Tricia Sullivan’s Occupy Me and Nick Wood’s Azanian Bridges.

My review of Europe in Winter hasn’t appeared here yet as it only appeared in Interzone a few months ago.

You may wonder why there is also no review of Azanian Bridges on my blog. Well that’s because I did some proof-reading work on it and that exercise is a little different from reading for review purposes.

The only one I haven’t read is A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers and I won’t be. I thought her previous novel was godawful. I can’t see her having improved much.

I don’t have such a good strike record on the shorter works of which I’ve read only the two which appeared in Interzone.

Malcolm Devlin The End of Hope Street (Interzone #266)

Jaine Fenn Liberty Bird (Now We Are Ten, NewCon Press)

Una McCormack Taking Flight (Crises and Conflicts, NewCon Press)

Helen Oyeyemi Presence (What is Not Yours is Not Yours, Picador)

Tade Thompson The Apologists (Interzone #266)

Aliya Whiteley The Arrival of Missives (Unsung Stories)

I look forward to reading these when the usual annual booklet arrives.

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