"I am the Shadow of the Lion.The one who will survive deaths without number.The one who has lost everyone. The one wounded and betrayed.I am not the Lion. He is dead.I am his Shadow.I am his revenge."Amkela has always fought beside his older brother Nenkani, the Lion of the West and last hope of their people against the invading Karaphi Empire.
But when they are betrayed and hunted by Imperial airships, Amkela is offered power and revenge by an imprisoned being of visions and vines called dreaming-what-is-to-come. Thrust from his brother's shadow, Amkela must lead his people to freedom while keeping secret the terrible price he's paid.
When the shadow of the Empire falls across him, will Amkela be strong enough to save his people? Will he be strong enough to survive?
About the author
Jon Keevy is an award-winning writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Which sounds like a standard start to a biography, but it gets a little odd when he includes the title of his most successful project: Genital Jousting. It's a computer game about a penis looking for a date and it was nominated for Narrative Excellence at the 2019 IGF Awards in San Francisco. After bringing that up the biography returns to normalcy with Jon's wide-ranging body of work in prose, theatre, children's books, online content and film. As is usual with biographies, he's used a list with many different genres to handwave you past the specifics of his career. And, as is also usual, he will conclude with a humanising personal fact: as a nine-year-old he wrote stories about meeting dinosaurs. His favorite is a pachycephalosaurus.
The Unwoven Warrior | Jon Keevy
Jon Keevy is an award-winning writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Which sounds like a standard start to a biography, but it gets a little odd when he includes the title of his most successful project: Genital Jousting. It's a computer game about a penis looking for a date and it was nominated for Narrative Excellence at the 2019 IGF Awards in San Francisco. After bringing that up the biography returns to normalcy with Jon's wide-ranging body of work in prose, theatre, children's books, online content and film. As is usual with biographies, he's used a list with many different genres to handwave you past the specifics of his career. And, as is also usual, he will conclude with a humanising personal fact: as a nine-year-old he wrote stories about meeting dinosaurs. His favorite is a pachycephalosaurus.
- “A gritty African fantasy that plunges you into a high-stakes journey, weaving loss, vengeance, and ancestral ties into a brutal fight for survival. A debut that knows exactly what it’s doing.”– Dale Halvorsen, Co-Author of The Girls of Little Hope and This Book Will Find You
‘The Unwoven Warrior’ is a bold debut from South African author Jon Keevy, bringing an African-inspired, genre-blending sci-fi fantasy story that excellently mixes mythology, culture, and technology. We follow Amkela, thrust from the shadow of his fallen brother into the role of the reluctant hero, navigating a world of betrayal, resistance, and war against the occupying Karaphi Empire. Obviously, things don’t go to plan, and Amkela finds himself in the precarious position of having to broker a sketchy alliance in order to (hopefully...) make it out on the other side.
This book is one of breakneck action — you never know where the author is taking you next. The story simply races forward with an unpredictable energy, offering unforgettable characters and a setting that feels both strangely familiar and anxiously strange. It leaves you questioning your views of what a hero truly is supposed to be and if it’s all even worth it in the end…
It’s a wild ride, one that challenges the stock-standard tropes and that keeps you hooked to the last page. I would highly recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi and fantasy who are open to a story that doesn’t even bother to hold your hand as it races to the end.
Thank you to Mirari Press for the review copy! All opinions above are my own.
From the very first page, The Unwoven Warrior sinks its claws in with a world so vivid and tactile it feels alive — and slightly dangerous. Local Cape Town author Jon Keevy, best known for his inventive theatre work (Get Kraken, The Underground Library) and award-nominated game writing (Genital Jousting), brings that same bold, cross-media imagination to this novel. The result? A story that feels cinematic, layered, and bursting with life.
Keevy builds an African-inspired world stitched together with the bones of ancient alien technology — an ecosystem of sentient plants, airships, and crumbling myths that feel both familiar and otherworldly. It’s a beautifully blended sci-fi–fantasy hybrid, with just a smidge of horror lurking in the dark corners. His background in theatre shows through in the crisp dialogue and sense of rhythm, while his experience in game writing gives the narrative that immersive, player-in-the-world feel.
At its core, The Unwoven Warrior is a “Chosen One gone wrong” story — destiny twisting back on itself, heroes questioning their purpose, and fate proving far less benevolent than legend suggests. Keevy doesn’t hand out easy answers, and I appreciate that. There were moments of awe, moments of dread, and moments when I simply whispered, “Wait, what just happened?” But that’s part of the fun — I closed the book with a head full of wonder and more than a few questions still lingering.
A well-deserved nod goes to Nerine Dorman for her excellent editing — the prose feels lean yet lyrical, and the pacing never falters. Every scene feels purposeful, yet there’s always room for curiosity to breathe.
In short: The Unwoven Warrior is bold, imaginative, and deeply rooted in a sense of place. Keevy proves himself a master of world-building and tone — equal parts myth-maker, tinkerer, and storyteller. I loved the setting so much I wish I could step into it (though I’m not sure I’d survive there).
Well structured, with rich mythology and wonderfully crafted characters, The Unwoven Warrior was a delightful surprise that, in a way, brought me full circle in my reading journey. Back in the day (you know, the early 2000s, all those many, many years ago) when eleven, twelve year old me was reading anything and everything she could get her hands on, I came across a book written about the life and tragedy of Boudicca and her people, and it was real and raw down to the blood spilled and the blood hidden, and while it may be a completely different continent with different tribes and people and threats and different gods, the same complexities of what it meant to be a hero and revered when perhaps one doesn’t completely deserve it, were explored.
To have good intentions. To have compassion. To sacrifice. To become someone...else. To be flawed.
The Unwoven Warrior is a book that leaves you with questions- and for me, one of them was whether I smart enough to read this, let alone try to tackle the daunting task of reviewing it 😅 regardless, vague'ish concepts (Stephen King and what the heck is IT, really, anyone?) only added to the mystic, and left me wanting more, wanting to understand.
It's rare, with fantasy being so heavy-handed with their tropes, to be completely caught unawares by plot twists in this day and age, and yet, friends, I was. And it was delightful.
Thank you to @miraripress for gifting me with a copy of The Unwoven Warrior in exchange for an honest review.
Take the most mind-bending Blake Crouch-esque concepts, set them in a beleaguered Afrofantasy community making a desperate last stand against colonial eradication and you get this powerhouse of a genre-defying book. I barely know how to sum it up: every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it didn't just twist, it flipped to another plane of existence. At it's most basic, this is a high-action story of survival. Amkela has lived in the shadow of his older brother, charismatic war chief Nenkani. When betrayal leads to a total routing of their forces, the only hope for his people is for Amkela to broker a dangerous alliance with an entity beyond his comprehension. But THE UNWOVEN WARRIOR is also so much more than well choreographed fight scenes and a standard hero's journey. Every character has their own goals, and not all are 'part of the same whole'. It is a story that leaves you questioning what it means to a hero and if such a thing exists.
If you like a plot that keeps you on your toes and asks you to grapple with the very meaning of existence, you'll enjoy this!
Thanks to Mirari Press for providing me with a copy for review.
If you are looking for a fast paced, action packed furious African Fantasy novel. Don't step away from this book. A novel that starts off quite innocently but proceeds to break boundaries, keeps you gripped from the very first pages (make sure you have at least two days at hand because you wont want to put this one down) and will shatter all misconceptions you may have around sci fi.
For a synopsis, read the blurb about this book, but if you want to be completely blown away, go in blind. Trust me, you will have WTF moments, and maybe even a moment of WTF is actually going on?! This story contains CONCEPTS that interweave and intertwine body horror, nature, the futility of war, leadership, and more, but come the end of the book, you will be left wanting more.
(This book doesn't shy away from violence so be warned as you go in. You will be faced with death and destruction, as like in any war.)
Read it.