This book is for readers like me who love pausing in their reading to look up a new-to=them object or bit of vernacular -- but also, it's /not/, because Hopkinson's Caribbean-influenced fantastic culture is also so wholly her own that the reader has little recourse beyond contextual clues and an appreciation of the author's imagination. In my experience one more often encounters this sort of boundary-testing exploration in works classified in the science fiction sections of speculative fiction than in fantasy, but the inquisitive and patient reader (including patience with a more than occasionally short-sighted protagonist) will be richly rewarded.

Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson is a high stakes fantasy built on folklore. I enjoyed this read, the magical elements and plot points. Nice character work as well.

First of all, thank you to Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, for the free e-copy of Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson for review. Blackheart Man was a wonderful fantasy novel that kept my interest for the entire duration. Keeping my interest was primarily due to Veycosi, who was a good protagonist. I recommend the novel and to keep a lot out for more Nalo Hopkinson to anybody who loves fantasy and adventure.

Veycosi, a historian and musician in training, is impulsive and prone to making gaffes and mistakes. He is sincere and earnest, but can't quite manage to be successful. He is engaged, but his fiancees are not willing to go through with the marriage until he successfully completes his education. Unfortunately, he pursues a bold idea to solve a problem, and creates more problems as a result, which derails his education and his status in the community. While all this is happening to Veycosi personally, his island is being invaded by a larger, better armed group of people, and Veycosi continues to try to solve problems with clever ideas and shortcuts and keeps causing greater problems.


Hopkinson weaves a complex plot and keeps all the threads going throughout the novel. It's carefully plotted and satisfying.

I will say that the mix of English with the other language used was sometimes confusing. The words could eventually be figured out from context, but to be honest, the mix of languages felt needlessly confusing, especially without a gloss or explanation (at least in the edition I read).

Blackheart Man is a Caribbean-inspired high stakes fantasy with a great combo of folklore and reality, set in a magical world of Chynchin. It is rich in magic, mystery, and culture.

Veycosi is a complex character, sometimes infuriating, but undeniably captivating. I couldn’t help but root for him, even when he was making all the wrong choices.

In this queer-normative world, triads are the norm, and the exploration of love and family structures feels fresh and inclusive. It’s a love story, a cultural exploration, and an epic fantasy all wrapped into one.

The blend of Afro-Caribbean influences with fantastical elements creates a setting that’s both familiar and otherworldly.

This book has depth and diversity that sets it apart from the usual fantasy books.

The Blackheart Man takes place on the magical island of Chynchin, where the inhabitants, free from their past oppressors, live in a peaceful, inclusive society rich with Caribbean folklore. Hopkinson weaves two major plotlines: the mysterious disappearance of children and the threat of invasion, all seen through the eyes of Veycosi, an aspiring storyteller whose well-intentioned actions often cause more harm than good.

Veycosi’s journey—paired with the invasion of Chynchin—kept me engaged despite his many blunders. His desire to be a hero makes him frustrating, yet compelling. The presence of a chorus of in-story tales adds depth and offers an exploration of how stories shape culture.

Hopkinson excels at creating a world where gender roles and sexuality are fluid, starkly contrasting the rigid patriarchy of the invaders. The bitumen-like substance piche further enriches the story, as it represents both a resource and a threat, deeply connected to the island’s history.

The novel drops readers into the thick of things, requiring close attention to context clues. While the initial immersion can feel disorienting, Hopkinson's world-building is intricate and rewarding. Rather than overwhelming readers with exposition, the nuances of Chynchin’s culture, relationships, and economy unfold naturally, making the world feel alive.

In all, The Blackheart Man is a vibrant, thoughtful novel that blends mythology and culture with unique characters in an unforgettable setting.

Thank you to Saga Press and Netgalley for an advanced reader's copy of BlackHeart Man.

I was so excited to read this book and it did not let me down!

The world building in this book is amazing. No stone left upturned and it is done in a way where the pacing doesn't struggle through it. It's also so nice to read representation throughout the book as well as the author's Caribbean culture immersed in the book. Those unique touches help a reader to connect to the book and all it's intricacies.

This book is driven by it's characters and their dialogue. Veycosi, although not always the nicest, has his ways and reasons for how he behaves. He goes through a journey which ultimately changes him. He's not always our favorite character but we root for him all the same.

There are some deep concepts in this book like the impacts of war, freedom of identity, and what it means to be inclusive. It is all very current and meaningful to our climate in society today.

Check out this book, you don't want to miss it.

Thank you to Saga Press and NetGalley for the eARC!

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars--

Nalo Hopkinson is a literary genius. With Blackheart Man, she once again transports readers to a world both fantastical and deeply steeped in African Caribbean history, mythology, linguistics, and culture. Blackheart Man centers around a young man named Veycosi, living on the island of Chynchin. Veycosi is studying to be an oral storyteller to preserve knowledge and the history of his people. However, he's a bit of a mess. His life is a never-ending comedy of errors. I deeply enjoyed him as a flawed, but lovable character. The book opens with him blowing up part of the island's water system and flooding parts of the island in a misguided attempt to restore water to those without in a time of drought. As the book progresses, this pattern continues. Veycosi "means" well, but the impacts of his actions often leave much to be desired. In this way, Veycosi finds himself in a big mess when a group of children go missing, only to return as zombie versions of themselves, believed to have had their hearts taken by the mythological figure of the Blackheart Man.

This mystery unfolds parallel to another. Despite being a small island, Chynchin has avoided being conquered by a neighboring empire due to a slave uprising centuries past, when three witches were said to have entombed invading colonial soldiers in a sea of melted tar. Veycosi--an educated man--believes there to be a scientific, rather than magical, explanation. He seeks to uncover the truth of how the witches of old defeated their slavers' emissaries to prevent a new attempt at colonial takeover. Amid this backdrop, Hopkinson also deftly explores issues of race, justice, belonging, and social cohesion when the descendants of the formerly enslaved and a population that abetted the colonizers live alongside on another.

There's truly SO much going on in this book that it's hard to lay out all that I loved. It's an enjoyable story of a magical historical event, and at the same time it's a philosophical look at a communal, polyamorous society that runs on social capitol instead of money. Read it! And Hopkinson's other novels!

Many thanks to Saga Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

He wanted the world to be awestruck by him. He wanted praise. To be patted on the head...."

Nalo Hopkinson is a masterful storyteller. From the very first page, all the way through to the very last, the reader is completely sunk into this world. In this book, we meet Veycosi, who is a well meaning, but silly and sometimes self-absorbed in his machinations to find greatness. We also meet a host of other characters all on their own paths to greatness, which is often fueled by vengeance.

"He only knew he wanted their regard. To rass with their love, if they would only fear losing this! Was he so wrong in that?"

I loved visiting this fictional Caribbean island and learning about its rich history through the various interesting characters. There were many conversations in this artful piece of work that centered on various forms of oppression that are often accepted as the status quo in this society. The oppressed are often expected to feel appreciative of their subpar treatment, while their complaints are continuously dismissed by the more privileged members of the society as mere ungrateful grumblings. On the surface, it seems like this book is set in a matriarchal society where men are relegated to specific roles, but as you get further into the book, you realise that society is far more layered, and values are deeply integrated. Their is a comprehensive expression of gender identity and sexual orientation, and families are organised between three adults and all the accompanying children.

"Sometimes the world was wondrous, and found it was bearing you up where by rights you should be sinking."

This book is rich in Caribbean references, especially to food, phrases, and places. I can't express how much I appreciated seeing names of places from my home and hearing the beautiful tongues of the local language.



I will now definitely be moving up some of this author's work to a higher priority on my tbr.

Thank you, Netgalley and Saga Press, for providing an e-arc of this book.

Big thanks to Saga Press and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Nalo Hopkinson’s new book Blackheart Man. I initially requested this book for a few reasons. The first was reading Hopkinson’s short story “The Most Strongest Obeah woman of the World” in Jordan Peele’s Black horror anthology Out There Screaming. The story stood out for being strange and somewhat like cosmic horror, but also rooted in Jamaican and Caribbean folklore and traditions, while also challenging some of the patriarchal ways and ideas. I really enjoyed the bizarre and creative writing from Hopkinson and grew excited to learn that this book was also titled after the Blackheart Man myth of Jamaica. Reading Hurston’s Tell My Mule about Caribbean myths and folktales, I was really interested in this story that was frequently told to children to regulate their behavior—kind of like a boogeyman. Hopkinson’s book takes this mythological character and reinvents him for a fantastical world of magic—the island of Chynchin. In particular, the story follows Veycosi, a student of history and folklore who must record stories to earn his title as a griot. Hopkinson’s imagining of the world of Chynchin is descriptive and creative, yet also rooted in traditions and folklore of the Caribbean. She incorporates obeah practices, as well as important creatures like hummingbirds and caimans. While the society in Chynchin also bears resemblance to Caribbean cultures, there are also unique touches like the fact that it is a predominantly matriarchal society where women often take two husbands, who share not only the wife, but also the responsibility of raising their children. While the story focuses on Veycosi’s struggles to master magic and folktales, we also learn about some of the problems in Chynchin, especially as more and more children (Pickens) go missing. Eventually some return, but Veycosi seems to be the only one who can command and control them. Furthermore, Chynchin is under attack, where an ancient (or at least older) threat is seeking to be unearthed, possibly returning the island to enslavement. Hopkinson uses the history and culture of Caribbean nations in a unique way, building on what is there to craft her own world and traditions of magic and power. Furthermore, the mystery of the Pickens disappearance and trance-like state becomes a compelling story about Veycosi’s own motivations and challenges to survive and make a name for himself in Chynchin. I really enjoyed the fact that there’s so much of Caribbean culture in this book, but I also found this to be a challenge to reading the story early on. I felt a little lost in the world of Chynchin in the first quarter of the book, adjusting not only to the differences in the culture, but also in the language the characters speak. I eventually grew accustomed to it, in much the same way I also adapted to Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, my initial reading was a little slow. I also felt like Hopkinson’s in-cluing of the world of Chynchin left me a little confused early on as well. I think I prefer more world building in these kinds of fantasy works, where I am able to learn more about the history and culture of the place. However, as I read on, Chynchin also became more familiar and relatable. I think the strongest part of the book are the various characters—Veycosi has a lot of unlikeable characteristics, yet, I also found his suffering and challenges to be somewhat harsh. He was entertaining and humorous at times, and there were other funny moments, as well as some shocking and scary moments as well. Other characters served different roles, but were as compelling and interesting. Their language and actions made the story more entertaining and enjoyable. I look forward to reading other books and stories by Hopkinson, and I hope that she revisits Chynchin with some stories that feature other characters.

Thank you SAGA Press for the chance to read this book. What an experience, I am left in awe of this books magic.

Not actual fantasy magic, although yes there is. But the book itself, the story, the way it takes ahold of your hand and walks you through the other world that is so different but so close to ours. This wont be for everyone, but that can be said for all books. Where this shines, and truly shines, is the style. We need more stories like this!

Nalo Hopkinson's new novel, BLACKHEART MAN, picks up and plays changes on themes from throughout her career. Hopkinson is an important voice in contemporary science fiction and fantasy, and this is her first new novel in a good while.

[WARNING: what follows involves certain unavoidable spoilers; though I have tried to keep them at a minimum, some have to be mentioned because they work as deep premises for the novel as a whole]

We are given an imaginary Caribbean island nation called Chynchin, and a male protagonist, Veycosi, who is smart and interesting but also something of an asshole. The island is a place of magic, but also of hard sociopolitical realities, and the novel is in part about how to negotiate the conflict between harsh actuality and magical transformation.

Chynchin is under threat from a much larger country, Ymisen, that colonized it in the past, was defeated two centuries ago by seemingly magical means, and now is back trying to regain control and economically exploit the island. This political danger or dilemma is largely explored in terms of the novel's vision of society or community; one might call this aspect of the novel "folkloric" -- something that is present in much of Hopkinson's earlier work -- but I fear that the term might sound condescending and underplay the vitality and richness of Hopkinson's inventions, and the ways that they not only draw on Black Caribbean culture, but also work in a science-fictional world-building way).

Things are enrichened by a lovely fluidity of sexualities and of gender roles: the island isn't patriarchal in the ways most actually-existing societies all too often are. Men do not have a monopoly of power in Chynchin, though they seemingly do in the culture of the imperialist invaders. Official marriages are between a woman and two men, and sexual relationships between men and women, as well as between men and men, are common both in these marriages and outside them (non-marital relationships are encouraged rather than seen as transgressive).

We also have important characters who change their sex and gender in the course of the narrative (I say both sex and gender because genitalia themselves change, as well as publicly adopted roles). And we also have some instances of parthenogenesis (women giving birth to genetic clones of themselves). (Though the book only poses the genetic portion of this implicitly, it even asks us to imagine a case in which a woman gives birth to a clone of herself, genetically identical to herself, except having a Y chromosome in place of one of the two Xes).

Another major factor in the story -- something that is entirely natural, but that links up with the supernatural themes -- is the presence on the island of what the inhabitants call piche: this is bitumen (also sometimes called asphalt or tar), a viscous petroleum substance that bubbles out of the ground (as in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles that I visited a few months ago), and that is both a resource and a danger. The Ymisen invaders two centuries ago were defeated when they were trapped in the piche and swallowed alive. The question hanging over the novel is whether such a thing can happen again.

I don't want to go into the novel's actual plot, because that would involve more spoilers in addition to the structural ones I have mentioned already. I will just say that the story is exciting and engaging, that the politics is entirely interwoven with the gender and sexuality, that the fantastic and the mundane beautifully coexist in the way the everyday life of Chynchin is described, that we get a vision of nature as being both independent of culture and yet unavoidably inflected by, interpreted through, and interfaced with culture, that we get a protagonist (described in a close third person) who is in someways obnoxious but nonetheless redeemable, and that children play important roles in the story in their own right, rather than just being the pawns of adults. In all these ways, Blackheart Man is both a lively and vivid "folkloric" novel, and also at the same time, although without being ostentatious about it, a truly utopian and visionary work.

I got an ARC of this book.

I don’t know where to start with this one. I fell asleep every 10-15 pages, but I also couldn’t stop reading. I have never had a book that put me to sleep that also was incredibly fascinating. I was recommending this book to people while reading it.

The language choices were fascinating. Hopkinson created two pretty disctint languages with grammar and rules that helped tell the characters from the two countries apart. Add that into having a narration that did not follow the speaking patterns of the characters and you have this wildly fun and well written book. I immediately started recommending it to my language people. People who are multilingual, people who like well written books. It fits those groups really well.

The way that Chynchin was structured was interesting. The way that they handled books and knoweldge was unique. The memorization of books that then were sung in concerts was woah. I immediately sent recommendations to my music people and my teachers. This was the first time I had seen a math book sung, so I was hooked. I needed to know every detail of the community.

The society was queernorm and polyam by default. Triades were the norm and it was the norm for women to have two husbands. It was not polygamy/polyandry, it was with consent. It was a fascinating look at how society could look if people were allowed to just express love without restrictions. I sent recommendations to my queer and polyam people.

The way the religion was set up was wild. Having twining children and two goddesses that worked together. The way that the god was reborn in that child. I was fascinated, despite not being interested in most god mythologies. I sent this to my gods people. Having gods be a motherly figure and/or a trickster figure felt just right for my gods people.

There were more groups: old animal lovers (Goat needed more page time, that is my main critique!), adult students, Indiegnous people (I have seen so much about Hopinson being one of the coolest Indigenous sci-fi/fantasy authors and I can see why!). There are so many reasons to read this book. You might have to admit that a book that put me to sleep, but I still rated four stars and talked about to everyone might be interesting.

I probably should have put this off for later, but I did finish reading it through a bout with Covid, which affected my mood and focus issues. I have enjoyed many of Nalo's stories in the past, but I had a hard time connecting with this one. My opinion might change if I ever re-read it.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a little tough to get into initially, large chapters feel a little daunting to me if I'm being honest. But once I got stuck into this I could not put it down. The characters were interesting and well written, and their motivations and actions made sense throughout. The conversational style of the writing and the slang within made the world feel interesting and very well rounded. The relationships and romances within were intriguing and felt like they all made sense within the world. I found this book to be complex and interesting, and definitely need to go back and read more from Nalo Hopkinson because wow!

I enjoyed that we are dropped RIGHT into the action however it made me have a hard time connecting with any of the characters for a while and the multi POVs were confusing but you eventually get the hang of it

Unfortunately I feel like this isn’t MY type of book but I can see it working for a lot of different readers. Each POV does have its own distinct voice which is a plus because I hate getting multi POVs where there’s no reason for it.

We follow Veycosi who historian/musician student on the island of Chynchin and I loved the connection between history and music and how it was the books way of world building.

I would say to pick this up if you are in a fantasy slump and need something different to pull you out!

Thank you to netgalley and saga for the ARC for a review!!

Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley

The folklore, the history, the storytelling, the characters: everything about this story had me captivated- but it took a bit for me to get there. There are many layers within the story and often I was somewhat questioning things or having to reread them.

Hopkinson does a great job of grounding readers in this immersive story and connecting us with its characters, especially Veycosi. I would have loved a little more explanation of the meaning of things but I can appreciate what the author was trying to do.

What an adventure! I look forward to reading other works by Nalo Hopkinson in the future.

I had a difficult time following the story. I read about half the book when I realized I had no idea what was going on. I'm giving this the most middle of the road rating I can. There's nothing about this book that I can say I dislike, but there's not anything that I can say I like. Based solely on me having difficulties keeping track of things. The three POVs are split up with different fonts, which did help me keep track of who was being followed. But my brain wasn't connecting the events for whatever reason.

I’m always on the lookout for a unique fantasy story and this book did not disappoint. The author does thoughtful work on world-building and this was a memorable use of the genre.

Veycosi has a host of problems and clogged pipes are the smallest. There is the arrival of the Ymisen fleet to the shores of Chynchin, there is the whole question of his marriage, he lost a book by accidentally dropping it into water, and he hopes he hasn’t killed a cullybee.
Mainly, Veycosi is too smart for his own good, and dumb in all the wrong ways.
Veycosi’s island country of Chynchin is both familiar and unfamiliar. Hopkinson draws on history and folklore to create a realistic and well thought out world that is under threat from outside sources of various types. Cosi wants to be someone, he wants to be recognized for his brilliance and intelligence. In many ways, he is a graduate student wanting his university without having fully finished or even taken in his studies.
Yet, Cosi is likable. There is something about him. He is smart, sometimes thoughtless, but his heart is in the right place, and that can go a long way when done correctly in a book.
Cosi finds himself caught in the politics surrounding a potential war as well as a strange happening concerning the pickens (children) of the community.
What Hopkinson does with this set up is examine stories and how stories can spring from yet disremember fact. It is also about how that knowledge of what was is both lost and found within the story. Part of Cosi’s task is to understand and discover the truth or the variants of various tales told on the island. The examination of stories as well as Cosi’s relationship to the folklore of his island is the backbone of the novel, and it is an excellent backbone. It holds the novel even when in the hands of lesser novelist the story might derail.
It never derails.
What you have instead is a novel about storytelling and growth.