This novella is by Nnedi Okorafor, known for Africanfuturism. This is a term she coined because she did not agree with how her work was being portrayed in reviews. She states on her website that “Africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. Africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative.” This was probably the first book I have ever read where I purposefully sought out a minority author (at least, minority in terms of writing science fiction). I don’t remember where I learned about Binti but I feel like it might have been on John Scalzi’s blog. When the book arrived I was surprised because it is so thin; I didn’t remember that it was a novella. I read it in one sitting, and it brought up some fairly deep thoughts for me. I am rating this 4 instead of 5 stars because, well, I can’t give EVERYTHING I like a 5 star, but also, I am not a huge fan of fantasy and mysticism, and this book straddles hard SF and fantasy in my opinion.
First of all, I was not sure for quite a while whether or not the main character (first person perspective) was human and if so whether or not they were on Earth. This was not revealed, to me at least, until about half way through. Not a big issue, and perhaps if I was more aware of place and cultural names in Africa I would have figured it out. It was set in the future, obviously, and some of the names had “evolved” so they were not perfect matches to their modern day counterparts. This reveals to me that I have blinders one… I am not as culturally aware as I might be. I knew that the author was known for her African themed writing so I assumed it was on Earth until it was explicitly stated.
I felt like the found artifact that the MC has in her possession is a bit of a MacGuffin, but backwards, in that it seems like it is critically important at first, but other events in the world are actually the cause of the events initially ascribed to the artifact. I am being a bit opaque because I don’t want to give much away. When I was reading it I kept thinking to myself, oh, I hope this is not some sort of Dues Ex Machina, and I am glad it was not.
I found her writing to be very clear, poetic and lyrical. I was captivated and really pulled into the narrative. I wanted to know what was going to happen. There are 2 sequels and I am interested in reading those as well. The book takes place in a high-technology world, but the book feels like fantasy. rereading the quote above, this makes sense. It is interesting that the ancient cultural behaviors of the MCs people (I was interested so looked up the Himba people after I read the book and learned more) are used by the author to be an important factor in the plot of the story.
And I guess that tells me something about craft. Write what you know (or what you want to know) and make it important for the world building and for the plot. I sometimes feel like, in my writing, that I can’t get the characters to do what I want them to, and that there isn’t much pushing them forward. I don’t have a deep cultural history or awareness, so my easiest writing style is always going to be from a white-male-cis perspective. But that doesn’t mean I can’t incorporate those and other traits into my characters, or if I am writing a non-human world, make sure that i have a deep culture, even if it isn’t explicit or in the story, knowing the backstory will be important. This is not the first time I’ve thought about this, but it was quite forward in my thinking while reading this story.