Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Novella it a tough length. Most of the time Novellas feel like they are either bloated short stories which could benefit from an edit or a story which really ought to be expanded into a novel to do it justice. Binti is one of the latter.
Binti has won a scholarship to Oomza University, the first of her people, the Himba, to ever win such a scholarship. The Himba are the minority population on Earth with the majority of people are referred to as Khoush. Her family does not approve and her mother tells her -
“There is a reason why our people do not go to that university. Oomza Uni wants you for its own gain, Binti. You go to that school and you become its slave”
In the grand way of YA protagonists, Binti runs away so she can attend rather than remaining at home to one day inherit her father's astrolabe workshop. (Also in the grand tradition of YA protagonists, Binti has more than a bit of "chosen one" about her. She was a master harmonizer at age 12 and was born with the gift of mathematical sight.)
They are partway to Oomza Uni when the story zags from the expected coming of age at school story. The Meduse, a species of jellyfish-like aliens board the ship and kill everyone on board except for the pilot and Binti. The pilot because they need him to land the ship once they arrive and Binti because she ever-so-luckily happens to have an artifact which can injure the Meduse and eventually also allows her to communicate with them.
At first she hides in her room, but eventually befriends one of the younger Meduse named Okwu. She eventually learns that the reason they have taken over the ship is they want revenge because their leader's stinger which was cut off and displayed in a museum and they consider that an act of war.
Binti offers to speak for them and they take her up on it after secretly removing her hair and replacing it with tentacles in a really gross intrusion that gets glossed over for the most part. Binti's successful and they ask Okwu to stay at the university and everyone is happy (except for the dead kids that are barely mentioned.) It ends bittersweetly with Binti realizing that she'll never truly go home, but reaching out to her family to maintain her connections.
There's quite a lot to like about Binti. The world is wildly imaginative and felt full and rich, from the astrolabes that appear to record a person's life and also allow interstellar communications to the math trances called "treeing" to the spaceships made from giant shrimp. I wish more of that had been front and center in the story rather than at the edges.
Okorafor deftly weaves in the everyday racism Binti faces from the Khoush without letting it overwhelm the story, from people talking about her as if she wasn't there to intrusively touching her hair. This is part and parcel of Binti's life, but not the story of her life.
The story itself feels a bit rushed, particularly the section where Binti starts communicating with the Meduse and starts sympathizing with them. (And the stone that protects her is very much a deus ex machina.) The resolution also happens rather easily (though rather smarmily with the professors all "shocked" to learn that the stinger was not acquired appropriately) and all the murders have absolutely no consequence. All of this probably would work better if it had a bit more space to breathe in.
Still, it was overall quite an enjoyable work.
Binti has won a scholarship to Oomza University, the first of her people, the Himba, to ever win such a scholarship. The Himba are the minority population on Earth with the majority of people are referred to as Khoush. Her family does not approve and her mother tells her -
“There is a reason why our people do not go to that university. Oomza Uni wants you for its own gain, Binti. You go to that school and you become its slave”
In the grand way of YA protagonists, Binti runs away so she can attend rather than remaining at home to one day inherit her father's astrolabe workshop. (Also in the grand tradition of YA protagonists, Binti has more than a bit of "chosen one" about her. She was a master harmonizer at age 12 and was born with the gift of mathematical sight.)
They are partway to Oomza Uni when the story zags from the expected coming of age at school story. The Meduse, a species of jellyfish-like aliens board the ship and kill everyone on board except for the pilot and Binti. The pilot because they need him to land the ship once they arrive and Binti because she ever-so-luckily happens to have an artifact which can injure the Meduse and eventually also allows her to communicate with them.
At first she hides in her room, but eventually befriends one of the younger Meduse named Okwu. She eventually learns that the reason they have taken over the ship is they want revenge because their leader's stinger which was cut off and displayed in a museum and they consider that an act of war.
Binti offers to speak for them and they take her up on it after secretly removing her hair and replacing it with tentacles in a really gross intrusion that gets glossed over for the most part. Binti's successful and they ask Okwu to stay at the university and everyone is happy (except for the dead kids that are barely mentioned.) It ends bittersweetly with Binti realizing that she'll never truly go home, but reaching out to her family to maintain her connections.
There's quite a lot to like about Binti. The world is wildly imaginative and felt full and rich, from the astrolabes that appear to record a person's life and also allow interstellar communications to the math trances called "treeing" to the spaceships made from giant shrimp. I wish more of that had been front and center in the story rather than at the edges.
Okorafor deftly weaves in the everyday racism Binti faces from the Khoush without letting it overwhelm the story, from people talking about her as if she wasn't there to intrusively touching her hair. This is part and parcel of Binti's life, but not the story of her life.
The story itself feels a bit rushed, particularly the section where Binti starts communicating with the Meduse and starts sympathizing with them. (And the stone that protects her is very much a deus ex machina.) The resolution also happens rather easily (though rather smarmily with the professors all "shocked" to learn that the stinger was not acquired appropriately) and all the murders have absolutely no consequence. All of this probably would work better if it had a bit more space to breathe in.
Still, it was overall quite an enjoyable work.