Take Afrofuturist fiction and mix it with Ethiopian culture and history, and you get Last Gamer of the Emperor, a super fun space adventure that I had SO SO much fun reading!- Follows Yared, a Black boy who lives in Addis Prime with his uncle and is a star player in an augmented reality game, called The Hunt for Kaleb's Obelisk. One day during a game, the rules change - and suddenly his city comes under attack, leading him on a journey to find his missing uncle and a forgotten war.- I loved how

This book review is originally posted in What Polly Reads. A review copy was provided by the publisher as I'm a part of the book blog tour but this does not affect my opinion on the book.When I started reading Last Gate of the Emperor, I thought it was gonna be just a middle-grade science fiction with bits of adventures here and there. Oh, boy was I wrong. Yared is a smart kid who can be viewed as a "problem student" in school. But as I read through his story, I realized that he's just another

Take the history and lore of Ethiopia and give it a sci-fi spin, including a bionic lioness and an illegal (but epic) augemented reality game.

Happy book birthday to this fabulous Afrofuturistic MG stunner!🎉 @mbalia1 @princeyoel 🎉Thx to @scholasticinc for the ARC. ...Yared lives with his uncle and his bionic lioness Besa but *really* lives for competing in an AI game called The Hunt. One day the rules change and he is forced to log in with his real name instead of his alias. Somehow this triggers an attack in the city and Yared is forced to escape with his nemesis, Ibis. Suddenly all the stories Yared’s uncle told him in childhood appe...

For a book aimed at a younger audience, it was pretty good. If I were a teenager, I think I would have enjoyed it enormously. As an adult, I thought it was a little predictable, but I really enjoyed the world-building and the main character's inner thoughts. I'd never read any African sci-fi before, and I enjoyed it immensely. Lots of cultural references to a part of the world I've not spent any time in. Makes me interested to learn more.

Review to come!

This book was a great read! Right away, I enjoyed the humor. Since the story was futuristic, I loved the floating market as well as outer space adventures. Yared, the main character, sounded like a confident kid. He knew multiple languages and knew his way around authorities. He thought highly of himself because he called himself Yared the Great. I liked "the Ibis" who was Yared's competitor in the augmented reality games. Yared's only friend was the bionic cat so it was fun to read him stumble

Thank you to Scholastic Press for a copy to review!This one is fun! Yared has the right amount of sass and irreverence that had me cackling. The Ibis was a perfect partner for him. And a snarky bionic lion? What a great trio. It’s non-stop action from the get-go. It doesn’t slow down either.I felt like a little more emotional depth could have taken this to another level. I would have loved to hear more about the Ibis and her motivations. With such fun action happening, the book didn’t seem to fi...

While the plot is hardly original, the protagonist of this fun MG space adventure makes up for that with his personality. Yared is confident, brash, vulnerable, brave, and mouthy, very relatable and realistic. I found his reactions to be very believable; he feels like a genuine kid, but also has all the makings of a fantasy hero. His relationships with Besa, the Ibis, and Uncle Moti were particularly well written.Loved the world-building too! Now I'll definitely hunt down a book on the history o...

This one was a lot of fun! It reminded me of Ready Player One, a bit of Warcross, and with the action, humor, and heart of Percy Jackson. Even though it’s a middle grade some of the sci fi stuff and the story line was really intricate and I didn’t feel like I fully understood it all. But that’s okay. I just had fun rooting for Yared and the Ibis definitely was the real reason he was able to do everything, amirite?!?!! I was also fascinated by the authors note at the end discussing the parallels

Underwhelming ActionThis book offers great representation and is packed with action, but even with those two ingredients for success falls flat. For such an involved high sci-fi, there needs to be a lot more explanation of the world building than there is. Who are the Werari and why are they trying to defeat Axum? Has Axum been in hiding for so long that the regular planet has completely forgot about them? There is no explanation how an entire society can live in secret. And who is the Authority...

Put on hold 19%. This is HILARIOUS it just need to return to the library + not exactly...in the right mood for this book. Will def go back to it later though!

Thank you to Scholastic Press for the ARCLast Gate of The Emperor is a story that will have young readers thoroughly entertained and enthralled. Characters who leap off the page as charming, snarky, and sharp witted. Our MC Yared Heywat, the Ibis (who should have her own stand alone book), and Yared’s bionic lioness Besa are what makes this story indelible. They work together every step of the way, having a few natural hiccups along the way. Linking them all together, a found family, when Yared

Are you kidding me?! An ownvoices middle grade book with Habesha main characters and I'm just finding out?!! 🥺🥺😭 I'm so excited!!!

Guest Review!"In this book, the main character Yared moves from town to town but has a normal life, until he sneaks out of his school for HKO games. Then when he logins in his real name because of rule changes, the city is attacked and his uncle disappears. He finds himself working with his bionic lioness Bessa and his HKO rival, The Ibis, to save his uncle. They find a dangerous enemy and a monster on the way. When Yared discovers his past, everyone is shocked by it.It was a very interesting bo...

The engaging cover portends an exciting sci-fi adventure, and the book definitely delivers one that will appeal to a wide audience. Yared is a rascally 12 year old who loves the augmented reality game that he plays with friends under the table. He lives with his Uncle Moti, his only family, along with his bionic lioness companion Besa, in the bustling metropolis of Addis Prime. I love the authors’ concept of this galactic Afro-futurist world, with “orbitals,” floating neighborhoods, farms and ma...

Last gate of the Emperor is a propulsive sci-fi adventure set in an Afrofuturistic city, perfect for fans of The Black Panther's Wakanda. This story deftly weaves vital issues like home, belonging, and family with fast-paced action and adventure and a generous serving of humor. Readers who enjoy middle grade action and adventure stories, sci-fi, or middle grade books set in Africa will enjoy this tale and what it represents.Read my full review on my blog.Many thanks to Scholastic for a free copy...

E ARC provided by Edelweiss PlusYared Heywat has lived with his Uncle Moti since the death of his parents. They have moved around in very mysterious ways, often living in abandoned buildings that they fortify heavily. Yared has learned many skills from his uncle, along with a lot of mythological tales about Addis Prime and Akum, and his uncle has helped him build a robotic cat companion named Besa. When he sneaks out of school to play the popular augmented reality game, The Hunt for Kaleb's Obel...

Suuuuper amazing narrator for this, I highly recommend listening if you can. I'm surprised this isn't going to be a series, but I like that it's a standalone.

Wanted to love this but found much of the world building to be unnecessarily complicated.