The Night Masquerade really continues the story of Home. If you enjoyed that story, you’ll enjoy this one as well. If you read the ‘Binti Trilogy’ binding all three, it fits as the conclusion to the story.

Much like Home, the problem (for me) with The Night Masquerade is that it goes a rather different direction from Binti. Rather than continuing outwords and exploring the universe (or even Oomza Uni), we head back to Earth, digging deep into the history of Binti and her people. It’s a fascinating story, just not where I originally expected Binti to go.

The way people on Oomza Uni were so diverse and everyone handled that as if it were normal continued to surprise me. It was so unlike Earth, where wars were fought over and because of differences and most couldn’t relate to anyone unless they were similar.

We do get a bit of Oozma Uni… but not nearly as much as I was hoping.

Characterwise, Binti remains the well deserved core of the story. Exploring who she is, where she came from, and who she is becoming–and how to reconcile all the parts of herself. I still love this part. Mwinyi is an interesting addition to the core cast. I like him. I’m less sure about adding a romance subplot this late in the series. It mostly works though?

Plotwise, we have the Kush and Meduse on again, off again trying to kill one another. We never really got a real resolution for that in Binti… so of course tensions flare up again. Unfortunately, it’s not really dealt with any better here.

On top of that (fairly major spoiler, but expected if you look at how far you are in the book), we have a major character death... that doesn't stick . It’s another bit of science that doesn’t really square even with what we’ve been told of the world and I don’t think it was handled well. Another bit of ‘who Binti is’ to explore though, which I did appreciate.

Overall, I think that if you Binti (the first novella) stands best alone, but the trilogy as a whole works as well. Cautiously worth a try.

Onward!