This may be unfair, because this is only the second book I’ve read by Okorafor (I’m counting the Binti series as a single book), but I am beginning to see a pattern: 1) she comes up with really cool ideas and characters, and then 2) writes a frankly incoherent and rambling story around them. Born malformed and then further injured in an accident, narrator AO defies social norms by repairing and augmenting herself with mechanical parts. AO lives in a futuristic Africa which has harnessed the punishing effects of climate change (scorching sun, blistering windstorms) to generate solar and wind power. From that foundation, we devolve into an illogical and disjointed tale that unsuccessfully mixes together cool concepts such as an evil megacorporation, nomadic herdsmen in the age of technology, an entire hidden city of technocrat rebels, manipulation of crowds through social media and superstition, and the cherry on top: a rather abrupt love story between two characters with no chemistry and nothing in common. Quite a letdown, really.
Tag: genre-afrofuturist
Rosewater, by Tade Thompson
I am sorry to say that nothing about this book really grabbed me. The concept was cool – in an alternate future Nigeria, a dome is built by aliens for mysterious reasons, which keep themselves in and humans out. The dome opens every now and then and makes changes in humans who happen to be nearby, seemingly at random. Some are healed of lifelong ailments, while others are changed into mindless beasts. Meanwhile some other humans, like narrator Kaaro, have developed various extrasensory abilities; some work on behalf of the government, some against, and some are just out for themselves. This book was dense with ideas but the telling was a little too wordy, losing me among the rambling paragraphs, and the occasional interludes of grimdark or body horror were extra jarring in contrast. The timeline is also confusing, jumping back and forth between Kaaro’s past and his present. The big reveal, when it came at the end, would have been far more effective had I managed to care even slightly about the characters, or if there had been any kind of logic underpinning their actions.