Product Description

The Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint celebrates Carnival in traditional fashion, and Tan-Tan, a young reveler, is masked as the Midnight Robber, Trinidads answer to Robin Hood. But after her father commits a deadly crime, he flees with her to the brutal New Half Way Tree, a planet inhabited by violent human outcasts and monstrous creatures known only through folklore. Here, Tan-Tan is forced to reach into the heart of myth and become the legendary heroine herself, for only the Robber Queens powers can save Tan-Tan from such a savage world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #547053 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
Nalo Hopkinson's first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, was selected from almost 1,000 entries to win Warner Aspect's First Novel Contest, and after publication it received the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. So expectations have been pretty high for her second book, and Midnight Robber lives up to them; it's a beautifully written, innovative, demanding, and wonderful novel.

On the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint, Carnival is a Lollapalooza of music and dance, a Mardi Gras, a masquerade; and the Robin Hood of Toussaint legend, the Robber Queen, is just another costume, Tan-Tan's favorite. Then Tan-Tan's corrupt politician father commits a crime that sends them into exile on the extradimensional planet New Half-Way Tree, Toussaint's untamed quantum twin. As she struggles to survive the violent criminals, mysterious aliens, and merciless jungles of New Half-Way Tree, Tan-Tan finds herself taking on--or being taken over by--the mythic persona and powers of the Robber Queen. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly
The sounds and rhythms of the Caribbean and Carnival suffuse Hopkinson's second novel (after Brown Girl in the Ring). On the Carib-colonized planet of Toussaint, Antonio Habib, the scheming, philandering mayor of Cockpit County, murders his wife's lover in a rigged duel and must then flee his high-tech planet, taking with him only his young daughter, Tan-Tan. The pair end up on New Half-Way Tree, Toussaint's alternate-universe twin, a primitive and dangerous world inhabited primarily by Toussaint's exiled criminal class and the douen, an alien race reminiscent of creatures from Caribbean folklore. There, Antonio's life lacks purpose, and although he remarries, he gradually degenerates into an angry, sexually predatory drunk. Growing to adulthood, Tan-Tan is deeply scarred by her father's assaults on her. Eventually she kills him in self-defense and, pregnant with his child, flees into the forbidding bush that surrounds their small settlement. Tan-Tan is kept on the run by Antonio's jealous widow, seeking vengeance for her husband's death. Hiding among the trees, Tan-Tan learns the secrets of the douen and gradually transforms into another figure out of Caribbean folklore, the Midnight Robber, who dresses in black, spouts poetry, steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Hopkinson's rich and complex Carib English can be hard to follow at times, but it is nonetheless quite beautiful; her young protagonist, at once violent and vulnerable, is extremely well drawn. Both Toussaint, a world almost awash in nanotechnology, and the more primitive New Half-Way Tree are believable, lushly detailed worlds. Like its predecessor, this novel bears evidence that Hopkinson owns one of the more important and original voices in SF. Agent, Don Maas. (Feb.) FYI: Brown Girl in the Ring won a Locus Award for Best First SF Novel.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-Hopkinson regales readers with a tale in which West Indian folklore and cadence are combined in a futuristic fantasy set on a planet that borrows from both Haiti and Canada in its geography and cultural history. Sixteen-year-old Tan-Tan, the victim of incest, murders her trespassing father, only to become a permanent runaway from her society on the planet of Toussaint. Her childhood heroine, the Robber Queen, becomes something more personal to Tan-Tan as she fights to survive in New Half-Way Tree, a land of exile and horrifying creatures: Tan-Tan learns to emulate her heroine. In this compelling and literary novel, the author provides fully developed characters of both genders and all ages. Tan-Tan's allies include her old godmother and a male peer who quietly took the implied blame when Tan-Tan became pregnant at 14, although her father was that aborted baby's sire. The beasts of New Half-Way Tree are also fully realized, making Tan-Tan's world seem less like one of a horror story and more one of myth. While the language consistently blends Creole with standard North American English, teen readers will have little trouble following the linguistic nuances. As she did in Brown Girl in the Ring (Warner, 1998), Hopkinson provides an engaging nexus of science fiction and folklore.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful book, wonderful language
I've just finished this book, and I enjoyed it tremendously, even the heartbreaking parts. Even the parts that pose major moral questions for which nobody has any answers. It's a great read, like all books by this author. It's also unusual because although it's written in a dialect (a Creole dialect) the language never gets in the way of the story or distracts the reader. On the contrary; the dialect is an advantage rather than a drawback. I recommend _Midnight Robber_ without reservation.

Suzette Haden Elgin ocls@madisoncounty.net

This was a great read
Patois speaking frilled lizard creatures, succulent fruits, deadly plants, a problematic father and a main character with fire in her soul. This book was hard to put down as soon as I cracked it open. The blend of Caribbean folklore and the sci-fi genre was very cool and unique. It also teaches you some patois as you read. If you want to be taken somewhere realistically fantastic, check out this book!

Superb second novel
Occasionally one is privileged to stumble across a new writer who has it all: plot, style, wit and emotion. Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring was a startling debut. Midnight Robber is even better. Midnight Robber is a fast paced sf novel which moves between two different worlds; between reality and myth making; and between human and alien. The language is a delight, intrinsic to a plot in which each character appropriates metaphor and sound for their individual purpose. One of the best sf books of the year.