I quite enjoy this book. It’s got some fascinating worldbuilding, interesting characters. It’s a bit hampered by being a novella–there are a few threads that I really could have used more of. Well worth the read.
One warning: the story takes a turn towards the more ‘horror’ (or at least thriller) side of sci-fi part of the way through. I was not expecting that–I enjoy that sort of thing, but be warned if that’s not your sort of story.
Worldbuildingwise, that was a fascinating story. It’s a (probably) far future science fiction story, with advanced tech, faster than light travel (even better: living starships1!), and tons of aliens. Even better, our main character Binti is of the Himba people of Namibia–a people who make a substance called otjize2 from oils and local desert soil, which they rub into their skin and especially their hair. It’s a fascinating mix, especially with having read next to no Afrofuturism.
I swiped otjize from my forehead with my index finger and knelt down. Then I touched the finger to the sand, grounding the sweet smelling red clay into it. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Characterwise, I enjoyed Binti’s voice. She really had the feel of a young woman (I think she is 16?) from a sheltered life, about to go off to university(planet) and find herself. She’s got a touch of ‘other’ about her too, things to do with fractal inspired meditative states–and that’s not even the start of it, by the end of the story.
When you do math fractals long enough, you kick yourself into treeing just enough to get lost in the shallows of the mathematical sea.
Plotwise, it’s light. A quick bit at home, then the bulk of the story takes place as Binti travels. There’s a fairly gruesome scene and more than a touch of thriller/horror, before (as one would expect from a story), Binti eventually triumphs–but at what cost? I think this is one part where they this really could have stood better as a full novel. Why are there such tensions with the aliens? And after all the events of the story–why does forgiveness seemingly come so easily?
He was always calling them evil, though he’d never traveled to a Khoush country or known a Khoush. His anger was rightful, but all that he said was from what he didn’t truly know.
Overall, well worth the read and I’ll certainly try out the sequels. Onward!
I couldn’t see the end of the corridor, so I stared at the entrance. The ship was a magnificent piece of living technology. Third Fish was a Miri 12, a type of ship closely related to a shrimp. Miri 12s were stable calm creatures with natural exoskeletons that could withstand the harshness of space. They were genetically enhanced to grow three breathing chambers within their bodies. Scientists planted rapidly growing plants within these three enormous rooms that not only produced oxygen from the CO2 directed in from other parts of the ship, but also absorbed benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene. This was some of the most amazing technology I’d ever read about. Once settled on the ship, I was determined to convince someone to let me see one of these amazing rooms. But at the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the technology of the ship. I was on the threshold now, between home and my future.
Isn’t that awesome? ↩︎
I listened to this as an audiobook. It took a minute to get a spelling guess close enough to actually look up a few of these words. ↩︎