#Nnedi Okorafor

[neil-gaiman]

I'm in Santa Fe so of course I went down to the picket line outside a local studio. George RR Martin was there too, and I got to see Paris, George's better half, as well. So was incredible author Nnedi Okorafor who had driven in from Arizona to be on the picket line.

[good-books-to-read]

Travel Destination: Nigeria

Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tolá Okogwu

Onyeka has always been uncomfortable with her hair, people always stare and whisper behind her back, until her best friend nearly drowns and her hair comes to life and saves her.

Her mother reveals a shocking truth Onyeka’s psycho-kinetic powers make her a Solari, one of a secret group of people with super powers unique to Nigeria, where she’s sent to train, however she’ll soon have to put her powers to the test against a battle between truth and lies.

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

AO has never really felt...natural, and that's putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was "wrong". But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

In a war torn futuristic Nigeria ravaged by climate change and nuclear disasters, where the lucky ones have left the planet and those left survive using mechs, bionic limbs and artificial organs to protect against the harsh environment.

Two sisters dream of more, peace, hope and a future together, and they willing to fight an entire war to get there.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in.

And then she discovers something amazing--she is a free agent with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

When a massive object crashes into the coast of Lagos, 3 peoples life are intertwined, Adaora the marine biologist, Anthony a rapper famous through Africa and Agu a troubled solider.

In a race against time to save a country they love and the world itself.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #53 – Binti by Nnedi Okarafor

This is one of those works that has been vaguely on my radar for years and years now – I have entirely lost track of the number of places I’ve seen it recommended as some of the best or most original science fiction of the 2010s. So when my hold finally came in on it, I went in more or less blind – which was, frankly, a fatal mistake. I bounced harder off of this than I have very nearly anything I can remember – if it was any longer I probably wouldn’t have bothered finishing the story. I got the whole trilogy as a compendium, and I’m certainly not going to force myself through the rest of it. Which is a shame, because there are plenty of original ideas in there, but (to me, at least) it’s an absolutely brutal failure of form and execution.

The story follows the eponymous Binti, a prodigy and savant in mathematics and the quasi-magical ‘harmonizing’ – creation and manipulation of electric currents. At age 16, she received accepted into the planet-spanning Oomza University and, despite the clear disapproval of her family and her people’s traditional isolationism, she runs away from home and aboard an interstellar transport to take her away. But when the ship is attacked by the Medusae – an alien species with a grudge against the university – a personal keepsake that turns out to be a powerful ancient relic allow her to survive when every other passenger is slaughtered where they stand – and eventually even communicate with the aliens who have seized the ship. She learns that they attacked as part of a plan to steal back their leader’s stinger, and convinces them to let her be their ambassador and attempt to get it through negotiation with the university administration instead. After she proves her willingness to argue on their behalf, they agree – and once they arrive at the university, the administration does as well. Both she and the young Medusae she forged something of a friendship with are welcomed as students, and she has to reckon with the dramatic changes being tested and healed by the medusae caused in her. Fin.

That is much more of a plot summary than I usually write for these things, but I guess my first big issue with the story is just that that’s basically everything that happens in the book? This feels like it could be quite easily cut down to a tight, compelling short story – or else expanded into a full novel, with enough space to give things time to breathe and allow for foreshadowing with more subtlety than a sledgehammer to the face. As is, the story feels both kind of meandering and like the plot beats are a first draft that never had the space to go back and add any real interest or surprise to them.

Which would honestly have been far more forgivable if not for the prose. This is shelved as young adult but in terms of sentence complexity and the way things are phrased it honestly feels closer to middle grade? Or, at least, every sentence was very simple and very explicit and direct, in a way that I quickly found clunky and then intensely grating to read. A friend described it as reading like it was translated from a different language, which doesn’t seem to be the case but I honestly wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Everything is also just thematically very convenient, I guess? Not even that the random relic Binti found in the sand as a child and keeps as a good luck charm turns out to be a hyper-advanced technological plot device, but that for unclear reasons the otjize dye that she (and the very real Namibian Himba ethnic group she’s a member of) use to plait and colour hair is to the Medusae a miraculous panacea which heals scars none of their own technology (capable of creating interspecies hybrids and inducing mutations with a single injection) could touch. Which is a level of thematic bluntness that’s just much more fitting for a children’s story than what I went into this expecting or hoping for.

I could go on, but there’s not really any point – to be positive, the worldbuilding hinted at is intriguing and evocative like absolutely everyone says it is. The whole reading experience was just a terrible failure of marketing, I think – I can’t recall the last time I read a book I ostensibly should have liked that is quite so forcefully Not For Me. Which is odd, because I actually quite enjoyed the other novella of Okorafor I read. But then, Remote Control was written six years later and for an adult audience.

[gollancz]

Gollancz has signed Nnedi Okorafor’s "tour-de-force", the Death of the Author. Death of the Author is an "exhilarating" story about a disabled Nigerian American woman who writes a science fiction novel that becomes a bestselling phenomenon, but her success comes at a price. Billed as a "sweeping narrative" for fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow,Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the story is "a multi-threaded meta drama examining the relationship between storyteller and audience". 

Okorafor said: “Death of the Author is the most ambitious and naked work I’ve ever written. I’m so proud of it. I’ve been writing it in my head for 30 years. It brings together so many of my many parts, my contradictions, fusions and my weirdness. The title comes from a famous essay by French scholar Roland Barthes, an essay that I’ve always loathed but also chewed on throughout my years working on my PhD in literature. I want readers to come away from this novel with questions, answers, and a refreshed love of what we as human beings are and what we’re capable of. Also, I wanted to tell a really good story.” 

We're so delighted to have Nnedi joining the Gollancz family with this phenomenal, layered and poetic novel. Which also has robots.

[ofliterarynature]

TBR TAKEDOWN: GOODREADS, WEEK 8b

Akata Witch (The Nsibidi Scripts #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

I'm trying to trim down my tbr list(s) and I'm asking for your help! Descriptions and more info under the cut. Please reblog and add your thoughts!

* * * * *

Akata Witch weaves together a heart-pounding tale of magic, mystery, and finding one's place in the world.

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing--she is a free agent with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

Ursula K. Le Guin and John Green are Nnedi Okorafor fans. As soon as you start reading Akata Witch, you will be, too

Date added: 2017

Goodreads: 4.03

Storygraph: 4.01

PRO:

Liked Okorafor's Binti series

Magic school quartet?!

Entire series available from the library in my preferred format (audiobook)

CON:

YA/MG, younger than I typically look for these days

[razreads]

Just because something isn't surprising doesn't mean it's easy to deal with.

Nnedi Okorafor, Binti

[shy-girl04]

I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.


Nnedi Okorafor

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[thelastofthebookworms]

You'll find the other polls in my 'sf polls' tag / my pinned post.

[esevik]

The next book I’ll be reading the continuation of Binti by Nnedi Okorafor titled Home.

In the first book the protagonist Binti left her home/ran away to join a prestigious university in space. However on her way there the ship got attacked by aliens and she ended up being the only survivor (kind of, the pilot survived too but he wasn’t aware of the carnage). Then some stuff happened and she ended up becoming the aliens’ spokesperson and created a truce between them and the humans. However because she became this spokesperson her DNA melded with the alien’s a bit and her hair turned into more tentacle like appendixes.

With this book titled “Home” I guess she’ll return home and deal with how her family responds to what has happened to her.

I’ll read the Swedish translation like the first book. This book also has chapters! Making my blogging a bit easier.

[nn-noor]

I love reading in the park, but I have two huge bug bites and that's why I don't go.

[quillandqueer]

✨Interesting New Releases | 20th August

The Full Moon Coffee Shop: Translated from the Japanese bestseller, this charming and magical novel, inspired by the myth of cats returning favors to those who care for them, reminds us that it’s never too late to follow our stars.

House Of Thorns: In the vein of The Haunting of Hill House , a teen returns to the mysterious house from her past to search for her missing sister and uncover the truth of Brier Hall in this atmospheric and eerie modern gothic novel.

The Red Tunic: Coming of age as the First World War breaks out, the Mullins twins’ fates are inextricably interlinked with the turmoil of conflict in this fascinating exploration of gender roles and the extremes to which war pushes us.

Scrap: Recently dumped, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. Esther must include every piece of paper she’s been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she’ll spoil the surprise. As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-200 boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family—until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. 

She Who Knows: Part science fiction, part fantasy, and entirely infused with West African culture and spirituality, this novella offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a teenager whose coming of age will herald a new age for her world.

The Volcano Daughters: about two sisters raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s brutal dictator, El Gran Pendejo, and their flight from genocide, which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to cannery row, each followed by a chorus of furies, the ghosts of their murdered friends, who aren’t yet done telling their stories.

We Love The Nightlife: Locked in a toxic female friendship, two vampires careen toward catastrophe in this dark and dazzling page-turner, set amidst London's glittering disco scene.

[losing-my-rights-and-my-sanity]

Warnings: Mild Violence

Categorizes: F/M

Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Anatov

Tags: found family, Nigerian culture and folklore, coming of age, magical realism, dyslexic character, albino character, supernatural elements, urban fantasy, leopard people

Description:

Sunny Nwazue lives in Nigeria, but she was born in New York City. Her features are West African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a "free agent" with latent magical power. And she has a lot of catching up to do.

Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But as she’s finding her footing, Sunny and her friends are asked by the magical authorities to help track down a career criminal who knows magic, too. Will their training be enough to help them combat a threat whose powers greatly outnumber theirs?

[literary-illuminati]

Trying to finally start the Binti books and I'm not quite sure the term for the specific tense it uses for its narration but it is like nails on the chalkboard of my mind. Hoping I acclimate quickly.

[charliejaneanders]

So overjoyed (and startled!) that DREAMS BIGGER THAN HEARTBREAK is nominated for the Lodestar Award. (Not a Hugo, but given out at the Hugo Awards.) DREAMS is the middle book of the Unstoppable trilogy, where I really started to experiment more with breaking all the rules.

What started out as the middle book in an epic space fantasy trilogy turned into a meditation on the difficulty of creating art in the face of massive horror.

And how unbearable it is to be constantly aware of terrible things happening everywhere.

I'm especially chuffed because the Lodestar Award ballot is *stacked* this year, full of some of my fav writers and humans. Massive congrats to Tracy Deonn, Cat Valente, Nnedi Okorafor, Naomi Novik and Rachel Hartman, who all totally rock. It's an honor to be on this ballot with you!

Also massive congrats to all the finalists in all the other categories — my fingers are too sore and I'm on deadline, so I can't type everyone's name/handle, but y'all are the best!!! Congrats!

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (11/06/23)

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (6/10)

This book has very little space for the kind of story it tries to tell, and it does its best. For an almost space opera-like plot, with intergalactic academies, alien conflict, and ancient tech, less than 80 pages is ridiculously small. As such, a lot of this book feels really rushed. A lot of worldbuilding stuff, such as the history between the Meduse and humans, what Binti’s edan is, and how otjize is so special, is just never explained. I definitely found this book interesting; there’s a major tone shift a third of the way through, and I loved the message of understanding differences and peaceful conflict resolution. However, everything is wrapped up too neatly, especially concerning Binti’s emotional state. Trying not to spoil too much, Binti goes through an incredibly traumatic event and has a very important aspect of her changed without her knowledge or consent, but she seems just fine at the end. I appreciate the attempt to wrap up such an ambitious story for a novella, but I would’ve much preferred a more open ending concerning that.

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (6/10)

This book started out very strong. The writing style really has that drifting, surreal style that fits a book trying to emulate gothic horror, and I really liked where the plot is going. I love books where the main character can't figure out if they can trust themselves or not, and the whole idea of discovering the secrets behind a truly impactful novel was so interesting. It was a little slow, but I was fine with that. Unfortunately, the ending is all kinds of rushed. The main antagonist is defeated very easily with virtually no explanation as to how, and although there's a character that the entire story practically revolves around, she only shows up at the end once everything is said and done to fill in the holes. Then there are multiple issues, plot and character wise, that are just never resolved. Unfortunately, the ending kind of ruined it for me, otherwise this could've been a 4 star read.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire (9/10)

After over a year, I'm continuing the Wayward Children series, and I'm loving it so far. This book functions as a prequel, telling the story of Jack and Jill in The Moors. I loved the very obvious classic literature influences, namely Frankenstein and Dracula, and Jack and Jill are both amazingly complex characters with an incredibly interesting relationship. I will always have a soft spot for Jack, and her unexpected romance was one of my favorite parts of the book. I'd say the only thing I didn't like was that Jill is so unlikable to me. I really wanted her to face some consequences after what she did, and while I can see how she became this way, it doesn't mean she should get away with it, especially considering the context of the first book. However, the series is unfinished and has multiple books I haven't read yet, so perhaps we'll see them yet again!

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher (CR, 43%)

I'm really enjoying this one so far! After so much intense fantasy and sci-fi, it's like a little palate cleanser. I love how this book takes tropes usually used in contemporary romcoms and repurposes them for the historical setting. There's also a fair amount of worldbuilding, since this is a very different history from what we know. I'm glad it's established to be that way, because there is some pretty blatant messing with the timeline, but I appreciate it since it brings more diversity than historical romances typically have.

Lodestar by Shannon Messenger (CR, 43%)

There are things happening in this book, and I don't like it! I've grown fairly attached to these characters, and I'm constantly stressed about them. I feel like stakes are rising rather quickly in this installment, like more is happening than in the others. One thing I noticed during this segment of reading was that I quite like the addition of Tam. Linh is still sort of a half-formed character to me, but I really like how blunt Tam is and how he still has the perspective of an outsider on Sophie's group and their dynamics. He seems to say things none of them think of, and I like how he shakes things up.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (CR, 42%)

I know, I know, I've been working on this one for a while, but it's a very dense book! I've put it aside for now in exchange for Gwen & Art, since I have to review that one, but I'm hoping to finish this before the November halfway mark.

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare (CR, 16%)

I’m finishing up my reread of The Infernal Devices, and this one is not that great so far. While I love the smaller interactions between Jem, Tessa, and Will, virtually everything so far has been interpersonal conflict despite the fact that a madman with a clockwork army is just out there somewhere. Like, did they forget they have like actual jobs to do? It’s mentioned that a good amount of time has passed since the last book…and you’ve done nothing? I know you’re all in the most complicated romantic relationships teenagers can be in, but please, think of the world.