This campaign funds two books, the officially licensed reprints of Charles R. Saunders' Dossouye and Dossouye: The Dancers of Mulukau, with brand new art and bonus material.
Charles R. Saunders was the father of Sword & Soul, Sword & Sorcery grounded in the cultures, legends, and history of Africa.
Dossouye, first created in 1979, was a warrior woman inspired by real-life female warriors of the West African Kingdom of Dahomey.
Mounted on her war-bull, Gbo, Dossouye journeys beyond the border of her homeland in search of a place to call her own, bringing a mind as keen as her blade to protect against the many dangers she encounters.
Charles wrote Dossouye's adventures on and off for decades, and it is fascinating to watch them grow and change as he did.
The books are written, edited, and raring to go! The crowdfund is for compensating the estate of Charles R. Saunders and the other creatives involved, as well as covering production costs like printing & shipping.
Available in… - Accessible Digital
and - Portable Mass-Market Paperback
and
The paperbacks will be perfect-bound, sized at 6.75in x 4.12in. They are easy to fit in most pockets and enjoy everywhere you go!
More details will be revealed as we ride onward toward the crowdfund launch date of 8am EST, Thursday November 5th.
Thanks to exclusive art postcards, shipping discounts, and more there is never a better time to add one of our titles to your bookshelves then during the crowdfund!
So please, lend Dossouye your spear and sign up to receive campaign updates, as well as be alerted the moment the campaign launches.
Latest from the Creator
Brackenbury Books
Cover Reveal! DOSSOUYE: THE DANCERS OF MULUKAU
Trevor Ngwenya knocks it out of the park again!
Best read after finishing DOSSOUYE, the collection of all her short stories, DOSSOUYE: THE DANCERS OF MULUAKU is a novel-length tale about what happens when Dossouye and Gbo finally find their way to the other side of the great forest where so many of their adventures have taken place.
The Dancers of Mulukau make benign magic with the elegant movements of their feet. From healing to entertaining, from ending droughts to mending walls, the Dancers bring peace and harmony wherever they go. Yet a mysterious, veiled people called the Walaq consider the very existence of the Dancers to be an abomination that must be exterminated...
Dossouye, having wandered far from her native kingdom of Abomey, is hired to help protect the Dancers as they engage in their vital responsibilities. Along with her formidable war-bull, Gbo, the woman-warrior battles foes mundane and fantastical to save these mysterious outsiders with whom she may finally find a new home.
The crowdfund launches at 8am EST, Thursday November 5th.
That's THIS Thursday!
Watch out for further updates about crowdfund exclusive rewards, livestreams, and more...
Keep your sword sharp and your sorcery numinous,
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Brackenbury Books
Cover Reveal: DOSSOUYE
This cover was painted by Trevor Ngwenya aka KUBO, and he is now hard at work on the other book we're crowdfunding, Dossouye: The Dancers of Mulukau aka The Novel.
A FEW FUN FACTS:
- Years after its original publication, Charles R. Saunders re-wrote "Agebewe's Sword" - the first Dossouye story - to better align with the tales that came after, and to tell a larger, longer story. It is this longer, more up-to-date version which will appear in our new edition of the short story collection.
- The average wordcount of the novellas we sell is 35,000 and we price their paperbacks at $15. Despite the wordcount, and thus pagecounts, of the Dossouye collection (55,000ish) and the novel (88,000ish) being much larger, we will be selling them both for $15 as well, for a total mass-market paperback pledge of $30.
We are doing to this to put our money where our mouth is regarding how strongly we feel it is important for the fantastic writing of Charles R. Saunders to be readily available and affordable. The ePub & PDF editions will come free with the mass-market paperbacks, and the digital editions will be sold seperatly for a total of $16 to get both books. - Further affordability is in reach as one of our early stretch goals will be our classic International Shipping Discount, saving $5 USD for Canadians and $10 USD for everyone else living outside the United States.
- We want these books to be affordable, but we won't be cheaping out! As is standard for our books, each Dossouye reprint will contain a full page B&W illustration by Palace Bloom. You may have seen her illustrations for Melissa Burlock's last two stories in New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine. Here's two samples of her work:
Odds are pretty good one of our stretch goals will be to increase the amount of Palace's interior illustrations!
Okay, that's it for now but keep an eye out for more updates in the run-up to our launching the crowdfund on Thursday, November 5th at 8:30am EST!
Keep your sword sharp and your sorcery numinous,
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