9780593428719: Nubia: The Reckoning
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593428714 ISBN 13: 9780593428719
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

The sequel to Nubia: The Awakening, the epic fantasy from actor and producer Omar Epps and writer Clarence A. Haynes, is now in paperback! A powerful saga of three teens, the children of refugees from a fallen African utopia, who must navigate their newfound powers in a climate-ravaged New York City.

Zuberi, Uzochi, and Lencho were among the first of a new generation of Nubians to awaken to extraordinary powers—gifts their parents lost when they fled their island home decades ago. And now that Uzochi has been declared a Nubian catalyst, everyone expects him to lead.

But what should be a time of rebirth and celebration is instead one of turmoil. The so-called sky king, Krazen St. John, is bent on harnessing Nubian gifts for himself, and he has assembled a special, superhuman militia to do his bidding, putting a ruthless Lencho in charge.

Facing down his cousin feels insurmountable for Uzochi, even with Zuberi at his side, but now there’s more at stake than the hostile government of Tri-State East. Uzochi’s training has led him to discover an ancient, forgotten force hungry for conquest—and it won’t stop until all of Tri-State East . . . and possibly the world . . . is under its control.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Actor and producer Omar Epps was introduced to audiences as Q in Ernest Dickerson’s film Juice, opposite Tupac Shakur. He has gone on to star in the beloved romance Love & Basketball, as Dr. Eric Foreman on House, and as Darnell on This Is Us. He is the author of the memoir From Fatherless to Fatherhood and both novels in the Nubia series.

Clarence A. Haynes has worked as an editor for a variety of publishers, including Penguin Random House, Amazon Publishing, and Legacy Lit, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. He has edited top-selling fiction titles like The Hundredth Queen and Scarlet Odyssey, as well as Washington Post bestseller The Vine Witch and its two sequels. He is also the author of the nonfiction work The Legacy of Jim Crow and coauthor of both novels in the Nubia series with Omar Epps.

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Chapter 1

Uzochi

“Hey, Uzochi, you with me?”

For a moment, Uzochi didn’t realize he was touching his cheek. He blinked a few times, quickly understanding that the air around him was dry, not a drop of moisture to be found falling from a sunny, bright sky. He was whisking away a phantom raindrop, something that was no longer part of reality.

“Uzochi,” said the voice again, softer now. He turned to its source, finding the strong, warm eyes of Zuberi looking back at him as they crouched in a narrow alley across from one of the entrances to Central Park. He readjusted to his real-­world surroundings, noting that Tasha, his former classmate from HS 104, was with them as well.

Both of the girls were dressed in all black in a militia-­style vest, shirt, and pants. Zuberi’s locs were pulled back and covered by the standard cap that most St. John Soldiers wore. She had a backpack by her side that he knew carried her trusted staff, which had been modified so that it could be collapsed into three parts, making for easier transport. Even if Uzochi hadn’t had the power to read her thoughts and experience her emotions, he’d have known how to discern the determined expression on her face. She reached out and touched his hand, and he gripped hers in return.

“Another vision, buddy?” Zuberi asked.

Yes, Uzochi wanted to say, a vision more confusing than any of the others. He could only hold on to scraps from this one, bits of memory that made no sense even as he tried to put them together. Still, he could feel the sensation of sand between his fingers, the smell of the ocean invading the alley where he and the girls hid. In the memory, there was a figure on the beach . . . 

Adisa, the great Nubian elder who had shared his consciousness with Uzochi in the moments before he died. Adisa’s memories had risen often, random and unbidden, in Uzochi’s mind over the past several weeks since the elder had passed on. And he wasn’t sure why.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Zuberi said, her soft lips curving to a half smile that drew Uzochi’s attention back to her.

“You’re right. Yes,” Uzochi said, straightening up. Like Zuberi, he was cloaked head to toe in militia black that allowed them to blend into the shadows of the alleyway. He found the thick padding on the clothing bulky and cumbersome, not at all to his liking, but he didn’t complain. He knew why they had to appear to be St. John Soldiers. Once they moved from their spot in the alley, they would need to be able to get to the massive elevator towers that would ferry them to the city’s wealthy Up High quadrant with as little drama as possible. They had gone over the plan extensively and trained and drilled and practiced and trained some more for days, practically to the point of exhaustion.

“Don’t worry,” Uzochi told Zuberi, dipping forward so that their foreheads touched. “I’m here. We’ll get Vriana. I promise.”

Zuberi clutched his hand just a bit more tightly. Even though she nodded her head and gave a faint smile, Uzochi was an empath. He could sense her concern that his eerie visions were becoming a distraction right as they were embarking on their mission. He would never intentionally read her thoughts without her permission, but he felt her pressing other emotions toward him. Emotions she wanted him to feel.

Gratitude. Trust. Worry.

A sense of it all being too late.

A sense of it all not being enough.

“Your plan, it’s a good plan,” he reminded her, even though he wanted to say Fuck the mission and take her in his arms. “We’ve practiced, prepared for all sorts of contingencies. We know what to do.”

Uzochi quickly turned back to the gleaming silver towers, noting once again how they dominated the landscape of Central Park. Not too long ago, he had come to the park every few weeks and stared at the elevators. He would stand there, grasping the straps of his immaculately clean scholar-­pack, ignoring the people surrounding him, and daydream. He imagined that he would soon earn a scholarship to a prestigious Up High university and become one of the few lower-­city New Yorkers to ascend, to establish a life for himself and his mom in the sky, free of the threat of flooding and nonstop work and the taunts and insults routinely hurled at Nubians.

His dreams of ascension came to an abrupt end when waves of teenage Nubians began awakening to extraordinary powers, gifts that were in fact their birthright. Adisa and Uzochi’s mom and others had revealed that back in their ancestral homeland, Nubians were defined by their connection to a primal, universal force known as the kinetic, which bestowed them with uncanny abilities. The existence of these gifts was kept hidden by the adults in their lives after fleeing the storm that destroyed their island home, having lost their own connection to the kinetic and arrived on the shores of New York as refugees with no power. A sixteen-­year-­old academic star, Uzochi had awoken to his abilities as an empath, a telepath, and, apparently, a telekinetic. But most importantly of all, he was a so-­called Nubian catalyst, the individual who would guide his people to the next stage of their evolution. Adisa had proclaimed this almost immediately after learning what Uzochi could do. According to the elder, Uzochi’s powers of the mind were tremendous, as evidenced by how he had guided dozens of young Nubians to more easily awaken to their powers. They were now known to many as the Children.

The awakenings had attracted the attention of Krazen St. John, the tycoon security specialist responsible for running so many of the businesses that comprised the Up High, the sparkling oasis of a city that floated above Central Park. The technologically advanced Up High was heralded by the world as the treasure of Tri-­State East. And Krazen’s private militia of St. John Soldiers was seen as key to maintaining the peace both in the Up High and in lower New York.

But Uzochi and most Nubians knew the truth: Krazen was a ruthless manipulator, having managed to get scores of Nubian kids who were part of the gang known as the Divine to join his forces, training to work as a special unit of his militia. The sky king had sent the Divine to attack the theater that the Children had called their home, and then had blown up the seawall that protected the Swamp from the sea­waters that were a perennial threat to Nubians. It was all done so that Krazen could send a message to all of Tri-­State East: that powerful, dangerous beings were now in our midst, and that the only way New Yorkers and the rest of the nation would be safe was for Krazen to have them under his control.

Though Uzochi and Lencho and a couple of other Nubians had managed to seal the breach in the wall and protect the Swamp from being completely destroyed, saving countless lives, many of the surrounding structures had been damaged. Shacks precariously perched on stilts had collapsed into the flooding water, leaving countless people homeless, and the outdoor Nubian market had been swept away. Even though the Children had used their powers to clean up the quarter the best they could, the Swamp felt like an even more dangerous place than before, with a compromised seawall flanking fragile homes that seemed to be on their last legs.

Crowding into a small Swamp apartment that was undamaged, the elders had deliberated on this state of emergency with Uzochi at their side, as befitting his status as catalyst. Zuberi and her father, Thato, stood among the...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593428714
ISBN 13 
9780593428719
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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