This Month:
THE DIVINE ESSENCE – WIELDERS OF THE GREEN – 36 – THE SECOND UNREST
The First Unrest characterizes the period in the history of the Fonlands when rifts appeared regularly in the Fonlands that led to the Earth of universe Prime 5. Portals between the realms still exist, but they appeared and disappeared more frequently during the First Unrest. This time lasted until the early 1900’s of Prime 5 Earth and includes the time of the slave trade that resulted in the migration of black people and Fonlanders to the Americas. The Second Unrest is all about the looming threat.
THE DESCENDANT – 4 – UNE IS TWO
From her perspective, Une is the hero. She removes the fear of death from anything she deems beneficial to her continued existence. To protect her many children from destruction, Une will cleanse the entirety of the multiversal structure of anything that could harm her, and her children as a result. Recently, Une came face to face with things that meant her harm. She will split herself in two to conquer the realms that produced beings with such audacity.
MASTER’S LOG 2120 – 14 – THE ARCANE WIZARD
Issac Washington was deep in study, honing his knowledge of the arcane through the lens of the Vodun of the Fonlands. As a result of his study, Issac takes a new name and he gets a fancy new outfit to match.
DISC OF AGBE
Excerpt from the Manual and Reference of the Fonlands.
‘YOUNG’ VODUN CHRONICLES – AGBE’S ADVISERS
Agbe remembers a simpler time and seeks the council she has depended on for ages.
ACƐ -14 – THE VODUN DOING WORK
The Vodun aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. A threat to all of existence is barreling toward them and they face it, even the new Vodun of Deads and Wraiths!
The drama in Issue 2 is my favorite kind; very unexpected and a show of the antagonist’s powers. The heroes of the PRL Serials have done the unthinkable, they have confronted Une and came away alive to tell the tale. Une will not let this stand, and she goes off, stewing in her juices before she takes very decisive action. The results of her actions remain to be seen all across the serials of Issue 2. It’s the high stakes action that I love that puts everyone on notice.
Issue 2 coincides with the last day of February, also known as Black History Month. We live in a very…let’s say interesting time, when it seems that the gloves are off and racism is just a way of life. It always has been, but it seems that some white people are tired of pretending that they don’t believe they are the default human being. There are white people who seriously think that all of existence was created just for people who look like them to preside over as the superior creation of their creator and nothing that you or I can say to them will avail them of that notion. We just have to share reality with those types of people.
I don’t mean to be a bummer, but if we do what the month says and look at the trajectory of the history of black people in America, the last few decades have been iffy, to put it mildly. I am a black man, born and raised in North Carolina, and I will acknowledge both my suffering and my privilege. My family has never had very much, but I enjoy a drive and intelligence that afforded me things that weren’t offered to others where I come from, so, again, I acknowledge both my suffering and my privilege, and my story is a sign of progress for black people in America because it could not have happened for many other black men in the history of this country. But to think that there are people in this country who are want to remove aspects of American history from museums and textbooks because it makes the country look bad, to think that we would even be having that conversation in 2026 – a time that if you had told me I would be alive in as a kid, I would have imagined we’d be riding around in flying cars like the Jetsons – is a stark reminder that there are people in this world who genuinely believe that they are divinely superior and supreme and they will die with the delusion that they will rest happy in heaven as a reward for living as the chosen race of their god.
But this is the February Issue of the PRL Serials Volume 6, we don’t need to get so heavy. If you want to enjoy and appreciate some art featuring black characters, you are in the right place. The majority of the characters featured in our publication are black, and it is such a default for us here that the instinct is to mention race when characters aren’t black.
The Fonlands and the stories that take place therein are inspired by the myths, legends, folklore, and religions of the African continent, and filtered through the diaspora of black people around the globe. The Fèt Deads Special that we have planned for November 2, and the Fèt Gede Special from 2025, were inspired by the actual Haitian Fèt Gede Vodou festival that honors the spirits of the dead. Deads’ Town that debut in Volume 4 is inspired by Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard. Tutuola was born in Nigeria and the Palm Wine Drinkard inspired Zacchaeus’s return to the Fonlands in the 2024 Interim Shorts. It’s been an honor and an ongoing journey getting to know the works of fantasy by black artists and to have that inspire what the Fonlands has become.
If you are looking for other recommendations of works of fantasy by black writers, you should check out Tutuola’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Marlon James’ The Dark Star Trilogy that starts with Moon Witch, Spider King, Victor LaValle’s The Changeling and I would say Lone Women as well, but some might argue that it’s more strange fiction, Lovecraftian even, but if you don’t know Lovecraft, then Lone Women works as a historical novel with fantastical elements. Solomon Rivers’ The Deep and Sorrowland are also good recommendations. P. Djèlí Clark’s “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” is an awesome short story that is historical with fantastical elements. I think it’s still available online from Uncanny Magazine, you should definitely check that out.
N. K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is a very good novel. I intend to finish the series one day soon, but my list of things to read is very long. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor was enjoyable, but definitely for younger readers, and there’s a whole series so there’s a lot to read there, too.
Octavia Butler, I think, is most well known as a science fiction or speculative fiction writer, and I won’t dispute that. Her work puts sci-fi and fantasy elements on her projections for the future of people and particularly black people. Her novel Fledgling is about vampires so it feels like horror, but there’s sci-fi elements to it as well, and there are fantasy trappings to the narrative. Butler is the truest definition of genre-bending writer and she definitely influenced the Fonlands. The Pattern was named in honor of her and Ursula K Le Guin.
Enjoy and see you next month!
PRL Serials 