★★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: Binti
• Author: Nnedi Okorafor
• Year: 2015
• Pages: 90
• Genre: Science Fiction, africanfuturist
• Publisher: Tor
• ISBN 978-0-7653-8525-3 (trade paperback)
• Wikipedia page
• Author’s Wikipedia page

 

Summary

Winner of the 2015 Nebula for Best Novella and the 2016 Hugo (also Best Novella), Binti is a 90-page adventure story featuring the titular character, 16-year-old Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka. Binti is the first member of her tribal group to venture into space, though she has to run away from home to do it. On the way to prestigious Oomza University, her ship is brutally attacked by a non-human species and Binti is one of a handful of survivors. How she handles this is part of her story of growth and is based partly on the skills and traditions of her family.

 

Commentary On Style

The narrative was mostly linear, though in a few moments Binti reflects back a few moments to clarify something. It is told in first person, which I know some people don't like but which I typically enjoy the most. Few specific timeframes are revealed, but I think the entire story takes place in a matter of weeks.

The story flowed smoothly with easy-to-follow action and little dialog.

 

Characters

Aside from Binti, only one other character is truly fleshed out — the enemy being known as Okwu. Physical descriptions of characters are tangible and precise, something usually missing in my own writing.

 

Originality

I give the story points for originality; it wasn’t like other sci-fi stories I’ve read. Not only was the main character a woman of color (still rare in my reading experience), but her identity was central to the solutions she employed. The use of a bioengineered living organism as a starship was also an interesting addition.

I won’t give away the ending with spoilers, but I appreciated the somewhat unique way in which Okorafor brought the plot to a close.

 

Points Off For...

I couldn’t give this a five-star rating for a couple of reasons. One is that the universe is weakly described. I realize it can be difficult to do without the full space of a novel, but often a few sentences will suffice to say what kind of universe we’re in — for the reader’s sake. What I usually like: some indicator of how far in the future we are, what kind of government exists, and how we got there from here. All of that was absent in this story — though some could be picked up by inference.

Secondly, there were a few moments when I couldn’t tell what was happening; I was forced to read on without fully understanding. For example, about two-thirds of the way through, Binti casually mentions that she has died once before and now thinks “dying a second time” is “the only way”. Clearly she continues to live, and no mention is made of technology or magic that restores life after death, so I assumed the references to death were metaphorical — but it was difficult to tell.

 

Conclusion

It’s an easy read — just over an hour for me (and I’m a relatively slow reader these days) so it doesn’t ask much of the reader except imagination. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a different twist on the genre.

 

Addendum, 2019.10.09

The author, Okorafor, tweeted in March 2019 that she does not want the term “afrofuturism” applied to her work. Until seeing that tweet, I had assumed (incorrectly) that she was the one who had coined the term — I’ve seen it in reviews of her books and even on their dust jackets. Now that I know that assumption was incorrect, I will use the term she suggested in the tweet, which is “africanfuturist”. I don’t know what the difference is, but am perfectly happy to use the genre terms specified by authors. I have edited my “genre” bullet point above. Here is a screenshot of her tweet:

 

 

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