Review: Lagoon

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to "Lagoon" in audiobook format and not only was it a greatly entertaining experience, I suspect it might also be the best way for Western, white audiences to experience this book. Because, and this shouldn't have been a surprise to me since the book is set in Nigeria, all of the actors are either Nigerian or are very comfortable using Nigerian accents. It's something I wouldn't have thought much about if I were reading it visually, but fundamentally shaped the story for me when listening.

Adaora, Anthony, and Agu all happen to be on a beach in Lagos, Nigeria when a massive sonic boom occurs, followed by a wave that pulls them all into the ocean. Aliens have landed in the water, and they are particularly interested in these three. Adoara is worried that it may be because she is what her husband accuses her of being: a marine witch. She got into a fight with her husband and accidentally held him to the floor, seemingly by magic. Similarly, Agu almost killed a man with one punch. And Anthony knows that his songs draw on the power of the Earth.

The aliens can take on whatever form they like. They're mostly impervious to harm. And they come in peace, but Nigeria doesn't quite believe that. And this story is as much about Nigeria as it is about the aliens; Okorafor shows us Nigeria are by showing us their varied reactions to First Contact. A Christian priest decries Adaora and the alien she shelters; an LGBT group parades in the street next to the priest's followers; a group of young men scheme to kidnap the alien; a prostitute desperately resents the aliens and violently acts out. Even the city (and its gods) gets in on the action. The main highway is the home of the Bone Eater and feeds off the accidents and chaos caused by the aliens. Under Nigeria, the spider sits and spins the story of her people. Okorafor's incorporation of mythology, of every class from prostitutes to President, of native-born Nigerians to Black Americans, is chaotic, yes, but exciting and surprising in its activity.

Parts of the story didn't click for me, at the time, because the sheer number of voices was chaotic and I wasn't sure which characters I should invest in, which people I could expect to be important. But in retrospect I consider that a strength, because every voice is important, and that chaos is the human response to change. I do think it weakened the sense of plot, and it didn't give the story the opportunity to explore the aliens as a species, or the transforming things they said to Anthony, or the long-term impact on the lives of Adaora, Agu, and Anthony. I know that none of those things are the point, but they're still questions I wanted to see addressed (or would like to read about in the future!).

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Review: Binti

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book I've purchased from a real bookstore in quite some time (and I managed to find it in one of my favorite bookstores, called Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church, VA - which seems to specialize in sci-fi, fantasy, and comics). I've been itching to get my hands on it since it was announced, because I've been following Okorafor's work closely since I read "Who Fears Death?" earlier this year. It's a novella, so it's fairly short and the physical book was slight, but totally worth it. It was released through Tor.com, which publishes many short stories on their website, and has recently started publishing longer short fiction as ebooks and physical books. Tor and Tor.com have a great track record for solid SF/F, and do some of the best work, in my opinion.

Anyway, onto the story. The world feels near-future in some ways - the physicality of Earth is very similar, as are tensions between different groups of humans, and there's a general sense of used-ness to the world - but drastically different in others. Humans have made contact with aliens; there is technology whose uses have been long ago forgotten but seem to be far beyond understanding for anyone alive now; while inter-species tensions exist, the various human factions are not quite the same. Binti is one of the Himba people. Water is scarce where they live, so they bathe and coat themselves in otjize, a special mixture of clay. Binti is the first Himba to be accepted to Oomza Uni, a university for all species in a distant solar system. Her gift for mathematics is important for the family business (making astrolabes - beautiful detail of technology that seem to function as a kind of personalized catch-all tech device, phone and computer and medical analyzer all at once, that only responds to the person it's tuned to) but Binti knows she can do more, so she leaves. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.) On the ship out of the solar system, she begins to make friends - until the ship is attacked by aliens who kill everyone on the ship but Binti, who appears to be saved by her good-luck charm, one of those pieces of forgotten tech. The aliens intend to hijack the ship and ride it to the University, where a stolen body part of their leader is on display. Binti, with the help of her device, negotiates with the aliens and offers to speak peacefully with the University for the return of the body part, realizing that it is essentially a suicide mission for the aliens. It's nice to read a story that could have gone the fighting, violent route but instead resolves peacefully and logically. She also discovers that the clay she wears has healing properties for the aliens and trades some of it for her safety and to create a stronger relationship with them. When they get to Oomza University, she successfully negotiates with the leadership. We get to see a bit of her first days at the University, as well, where she reconciles her alien-ness on the world, her distance from her homeland, and the personal importance of the traditions that variously mark her as outcast and important.

I am absolutely astounded by the level of detail in the world-building. In several of Okorafor's previous works, there are certain elements that have always intrigued me - the lost technology, the sense that some great disaster happened long ago - and Binti takes those elements and bring them into the foreground so they shine on their own. (I suspect that Binti takes place in the same world as Who Fears Death? and Book of Phoenix, but perhaps at a different time.) The world feels lived-in, and every piece of tech or culture or alien species has been fully thought out and you can see subtle (or not-so-subtle) effects of the implications of those details throughout the story. For a short story, it's absolutely gorgeous in its complexity.

The length was good for the story told, but I feel that this could have been full novel - and I want it to be a series in the "fantastical university" tradition, where we follow Binti through her adventures as she learns about the world she's thrust into. The story glosses over the elements that belong to that story (with some very good reasons - (SPOILER) the introductions to other students are brief, but that's because they all die right away, and her arrival at the University is the end of the story), and it feels like perhaps a previous or future incarnation of Binti's story could follow that path.

I appreciated the nuance of Binti's character development and the tension she feels between the importance of her culture and the sense that her culture might hamper her integration into the world she wants to join. The thought of foregoing the clay she wears only happens once (that I recall) toward the end of the story, after she has learned that what marks her as different is useful and she has already been officially accepted as part of the community, when she worries that she will still face personal discrimination. There's a beautiful scene where she washes it off in the shower for one of the first times in her life - the last of the clay she brought with her, the last of her homeland - and re-applies with new otjize she made from clay on the Oomza Uni planet. It's smart symbolism for staying connected to home while accepting a new world, and a wonderfully written scene.

Overall, definitely one of the best stories I've read in a while, and worth the $5 (or $3 for the ebook).

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Review: The Book of Phoenix

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved Nnedi Okorafor's "Who Fears Death," which I read earlier this year, and immediately after finishing it I wanted to know more about the world. Luckily, I didn't have to wait too long, as this prequel was just released less than a month ago! Overall, I enjoyed the story and the writing, as I expected to, but feel it felt a little short of the first book - although I worry that I'm a little biased and didn't give this book enough credit by constantly comparing it to its companion.

The world of "Who Fears Death" was a richly and inventively magical world with hints and peaks of being a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world, which I thought was awesome. This story is the story of the Book repeatedly referenced throughout "Who Fears Death" and offers a little bit of the story of the world before the apocalypse, as well. It's also much more sci-fi than I expected.

The main character, Phoenix, is one of many experiments who live in the Towers. She lives in Tower 7, which is full of African people who have extraordinary powers or transformed bodies. She is 2 years old and fully grown and beginning to suspect that there's something a little weird about the fact that she lives in a tower where everyone is the subject of science experiments. She escapes, and everything changes from there.

It was hard to get used to the science in this science fiction, as it seems both too magical to be sci-fi and not magical enough to be the same world as "Who Fears Death," but once I was able to suspend my disbelief it read beautifully. I thought that the book went too quickly, in general, and I got more telling than showing on Phoenix's character growth. I feel it skirted over some of the more interesting aspects of the story - both Phoenix's story and the story of how Onyesonwu's world came to be. Phoenix's growth from a sheltered woman-child to a revolutionized fighter happens very quickly and conveniently, though after what feels like an introductory section the pacing corrects itself (again, leaving behind some of the more interesting storylines, like the true nature of the giant tree that grew through Phoenix's home and its gift to Phoenix). It often felt as though I was seeing a lot of cool, intriguing world-building elements, but not really engaging with them. I might even go so far as to say that this story was undecided on whether it was about Phoenix or about its world, and never dove satisfyingly deep into either.

I love Phoenix, though, and her companions - Mmuo, a man who taught himself to walk through walls; an immortal man with wings like Phoenix's; and her lover, Saeed, whose favorite food is crushed glass but will die if he eats more typically palatable food. I also very much enjoyed how Okorafor tied this world to one that appeared in one of her short stories, where near-intelligent (or perhaps fully intelligent) spider-shaped machines patrol the oil pipelines of Africa, and delighted in how she included it: according to the lore of the novel, the spiders were inspired by such a short story. The language is beautiful, and the edition I read included some gorgeous illustrations to accompany it (which I wish could have been full-page and full-color!).

Then, there was the end, or rather the bookend. For we are hearing Phoenix's story alongside a man who lives between the times of Phoenix and Onyesonwu. The apocalypse has come and gone and left hordes of still-functional electronics hidden in caves (why? we still don't know, and I hope we find out). He accesses one device and Phoenix's story is one of perhaps hundreds on that device, and after hearing it he writes it down and it becomes the Book of Onyesonwu's world. But he heavily editorializes, as he still believes in the inferiority of the Okeke people and rewrites the story to reflect that, and so we still don't know exactly what the Book that is familiar to Onyesonwu really is. I was initially frustrated because of all these loose ends, but now I'm just hopeful that we'll eventually get more meat to put on this interesting skeleton of a world.

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Review: Who Fears Death

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was amazing. One of the first fantasy novels I've read in a while AND the first book since the Expanse series to keep me flipping pages. I couldn't put this down!

Onyesonwu is a young African girl, the product of a violent rape, who is only alive because of her mother's determination to keep her child safe. Her mother is an Okeke, a tribe of dark-skinned Africans whose fate, according to their religion, is to serve the Nuru, a tribe of light-skinned Africans. Her father is Nuru, and the child of such a pair - called Ewu - is visibly marked by their golden skin and hair and freckles. Onyesonwu is also different because she has power.

Around her eleventh birthday, she experiences 2 things: circumcision, and a sudden revelation of magical ability. Both reveal that her biological father is looking for her and looking to kill her. She spends her teens trying to convince people to train her to use and control her juju so she can defend herself from her father when the time comes. But she eventually takes on a larger mission - trying to change the relationship between the Nuru and the Okeke people.

The characters in this story were beautifully crafted. Onyesonwu and her friends and family care for each other, but also hurt each other, and you feel both that love and that pain. This was also a great example of how reading what you're not familiar with can be an incredibly rewarding experience partly because of that unfamiliarity - I don't think I've ever read a fantasy set in Africa or even a mythical land with African influences, so the setting and the tropes and the customs were new to me, and I delighted in the experience of watching them unfold with no expectations of what should happen or what typically happens.

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