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Noor

by Nnedi Okorafor, 2021

Published: 2022.04.04

Home > Book Reviews > Nnedi Okorafor > Noor

 

Photo by Wil C. Fry.
Cover art by Greg Ruth.

★★★★ (of 5)

 

This novel takes place in Nigeria, an undetermined number of years in the future, and is told in first person narration by main character Anwuli Okwudili — who likes to be called “AO”, saying it stands for “Artificial Organinism”. Born disabled, she was further damaged in a car accident at age 14, and then augmented herself with cybernetic prosthetics — which make her stronger and faster than the average human, not to mention other abilities she learns of later.

Originally from Lagos, she lives in Abuja when the story begins. She has grown comfortable with her routine of being an auto mechanic (her cybernetic parts help greatly with this) and going to the market, despite knowing that many of her fellow citizens don’t consider her human due to her augmentations — some even think she is an abomination. When some bigots attack her at a market, she fights back, her extra-strong limbs and her pent-up anger resulting in several deaths. She flees to the countryside where she runs into Dangote Nuhu Adamu (who goes by “DNA”), who is also wanted for murder (though, like AO, he was acting in self-defense). The two pair up, evade capture by Ultimate Corporation soldiers, and seek refuge in Hour Glass, a city hidden inside the Red Eye — a giant dust storm created by Ultimate Corp’s energy-generation machines.

The world-building is superb, and Okorafor expertly relates AO’s thoughts and feelings — most of the time it was easy to be immersed in the main character’s viewpoint. The book touches on (in some cases delves into) Big Idea themes including the ongoing damage caused by capitalism — both to culture and to the environment, downsides of reckless deployment of renewable energy infrastructure, what it means to be human, gender roles in society, the dangers of monopolism and corporatocracy, and what happens when modern cultures and technologies impact ancient peoples and traditions.

Descriptions of people and places are magically brief but tangible at the same time — this takes a special talent. Most authors seem to provide either too much or not enough scene and character description; Okorafor uses just a phrase or a sentence and I can clearly picture the entire scene.

Except for a few nagging irritations, I would have easily given this book five stars. My biggest complaint is the editing (or rewriting) errors, several of which cropped up throughout, each time jarring me out of the story. The first example I could easily locate was on page 84, when a character is speaking and the text uses double quotes inside double quotes. I know it wasn’t the style of the book, because in other places, single quotes are used for quotations inside double quotes. There’s another scene where the narrator mentions a man stroking a cat on his lap, but a sentence later he looks over at the cat, which is sleeping nearby. The cat wasn’t even relevant — it was only mentioned for atmosphere I think — but if you’re going to squeeze it in there, make sure you know whether it’s in his lap or across the room. Then on page 165, Idris says something to AO, but the text actually says “to AO”, instead of “to me” (because she’s the first person narrator). This was the only place where she is referred to in the third-person — it had to be a mistake.

Secondly, there were a few places where the storytelling got mixed up, perhaps during a rewrite or editing. The main example that springs to mind is on page 170, when the characters are preparing for the final showdown. DNA suggests calling in other tech experts to help, but AO responds: “...they won’t be able to do it quickly. Every minute matters now.” But the surrounding story doesn’t support her claim that time is of the essence. Just before this conversation, she luxuriated in a shower. Just after, she takes plenty of time to copulate with a lover before heading off to the big showdown. It’s always possible that I missed some nuance to the words (maybe she was only making an excuse, didn’t want to drag others into it?), but it’s the kind of incongruity that takes me out of a story. Either the minutes matter and there’s no time to call in help, or there is time to call in help while our hero enjoys a roll in the hay.

 

Conclusion

Despite the minor irritations mentioned above, the story was enjoyable and memorable, perhaps even more so because it deals with peoples and places often left unmentioned in mainstream science fiction.

 

Note:

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. Here is a screenshot of her tweet:

 





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