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Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first of a new Africanfuturism trilogy from Nnedi Okorafor set in the same universe as her books Who Fears Death and The Book of Phoenix. Set in near-future Ghana, the story follows Fatima, a 7-year-old girl who encounters an alien seed that falls to Earth and develops the power to kill any living thing when she glows green. She soon becomes known and feared as Sankofa, The Adopted Daughter Of Death.
Shortly before Sankofa discovers she has this power, the alien seed is stolen, and so she spends much of the book trying to track it down (on foot, as her power also kills whatever technology she touches, including cars, which also means she can’t just Google what she needs to know), accompanied by a mysterious red fox that seems to be immune to her power. Which is a fairly straightforward plot device for what is basically a coming-of-age narrative where Sankofa tries to make sense of who and what she is, and where she fits in a culture that worships her out of fear.
Pretty much everything here is familiar territory for Okorafor – strong women, alienation, death, mythology – but here she also blurs the lines between folk tales and the reality behind them, with Sankofa’s origin a mystery even to her, and one that becomes more ambiguous as the story goes on. It’s also a somewhat harrowing character study on what would happen if the power of death was bestowed on a 7-year-old Ghanian kid, with horrifying results. It’s not exactly fun, but with these kinds of topics, it’s how you tell it, and (as usual) Okorafor tells it well.
No Place on Earth by Louis Charbonneau
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ve never read Louis Charbonneau before – in fact, I’d never even heard of him before I came across this in a second-hand bookstore. And the back cover blurb convinced me to try it, as I’m often a sucker for totalitarian dystopias (that, and it was only 95 cents). The blurb is an obvious riff on 1984 – the Great Leader, the Population Control Corps (PCC), ubiquitous surveillance, relentless propaganda, total control, etc and so on. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual story is not quite that.
The story is mostly told in flashback, opening with the protagonist Petr Clayborne, accused of being a member of an underground resistance, already captured and about to be subject to torturous interrogation by the cruel Captain Hartog. Only Petr remembers nothing, having dosed himself with a memory obliterator drug. Hence the electroshock therapy that can unlock those memories. As the interrogation progresses, Petr reveals more about how he went from propaganda writer to underground recruit, and how he ended up marrying Alda, the daughter of an underground leader – who may also have been a spy for the PCC (and whom Petr may have killed).
Well, Charbonneau is no Orwell, but then nobody is. The story itself is alright, building partly on the suspense of who the spy is, and the increasing revelation that Hartog is not a neutral party when it comes to Petr and Alda. That said, the novel focuses more on the action elements than the context – which is also its main weakness. Charbonneau’s 2240 Earth under the dictatorship under Malthus lacks imagination, particularly in terms of surveillance technology. On the other hand, Charbonneau has a good grasp of how people behave in such societies and tactics that authoritarian governments use to control them. So it’s an okay novel – it just could have been a much better one.
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Everything is under control,
This is dF
Remote Control by Nnedi OkoraforMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first of a new Africanfuturism trilogy from Nnedi Okorafor set in the same universe as her books Who Fears Death and The Book of Phoenix. Set in near-future Ghana, the story follows Fatima, a 7-year-old girl who encounters an alien seed that falls to Earth and develops the power to kill any living thing when she glows green. She soon becomes known and feared as Sankofa, The Adopted Daughter Of Death.
Shortly before Sankofa discovers she has this power, the alien seed is stolen, and so she spends much of the book trying to track it down (on foot, as her power also kills whatever technology she touches, including cars, which also means she can’t just Google what she needs to know), accompanied by a mysterious red fox that seems to be immune to her power. Which is a fairly straightforward plot device for what is basically a coming-of-age narrative where Sankofa tries to make sense of who and what she is, and where she fits in a culture that worships her out of fear.
Pretty much everything here is familiar territory for Okorafor – strong women, alienation, death, mythology – but here she also blurs the lines between folk tales and the reality behind them, with Sankofa’s origin a mystery even to her, and one that becomes more ambiguous as the story goes on. It’s also a somewhat harrowing character study on what would happen if the power of death was bestowed on a 7-year-old Ghanian kid, with horrifying results. It’s not exactly fun, but with these kinds of topics, it’s how you tell it, and (as usual) Okorafor tells it well.
No Place on Earth by Louis CharbonneauMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ve never read Louis Charbonneau before – in fact, I’d never even heard of him before I came across this in a second-hand bookstore. And the back cover blurb convinced me to try it, as I’m often a sucker for totalitarian dystopias (that, and it was only 95 cents). The blurb is an obvious riff on 1984 – the Great Leader, the Population Control Corps (PCC), ubiquitous surveillance, relentless propaganda, total control, etc and so on. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual story is not quite that.
The story is mostly told in flashback, opening with the protagonist Petr Clayborne, accused of being a member of an underground resistance, already captured and about to be subject to torturous interrogation by the cruel Captain Hartog. Only Petr remembers nothing, having dosed himself with a memory obliterator drug. Hence the electroshock therapy that can unlock those memories. As the interrogation progresses, Petr reveals more about how he went from propaganda writer to underground recruit, and how he ended up marrying Alda, the daughter of an underground leader – who may also have been a spy for the PCC (and whom Petr may have killed).
Well, Charbonneau is no Orwell, but then nobody is. The story itself is alright, building partly on the suspense of who the spy is, and the increasing revelation that Hartog is not a neutral party when it comes to Petr and Alda. That said, the novel focuses more on the action elements than the context – which is also its main weakness. Charbonneau’s 2240 Earth under the dictatorship under Malthus lacks imagination, particularly in terms of surveillance technology. On the other hand, Charbonneau has a good grasp of how people behave in such societies and tactics that authoritarian governments use to control them. So it’s an okay novel – it just could have been a much better one.
View all my reviews
Everything is under control,
This is dF
