93 pages
Published 2015
Read from September 6 to September 7
Rating: 3 out of 5
Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the galaxy’s prestigious Oomza University. Himba folk never leave their Namib homeland, however, let alone travel between the stars, so by leaving in the dead of night to follow her dreams into the university, Binti has cut herself off from her family, her friends, her community. Worse still, she finds herself in the midst of a conflict between the pale Khoush people of her own world and the deadly, jellyfish-like Meduse.
This is a promising novella, humming with potential, filled with fascinating worldbuilding and detail, weaving deep mathematics and destinies. There are starships grown from shrimp! And we always need more stories that incorporate the repatriation of remains from museums into their plots.
Unfortunately, Okorafor’s prose is uneven, wavering from good to mechanical on the same page. Certain lines were awkward enough to snap my always-delicate concentration: “I could hear the [other Meduse], their near substantial bodies softly rustling as their transparent domes filled with and released the gas they breathed back in.” At its worst, the prose feels like a first draft. The pacing, too, sometimes makes Binti feel more like an outline — Big Emotional Loss goes here, fill in the groundwork for it later.
I’m intrigued enough to check the next two out of the library. Fingers crossed they feel a bit more realized than this first novella.
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