There are certain authors with gravitas, you know when they publish a book or story, then it is worthy of attention simply by the fact that the author’s name is on the cover. Such is the case with Nnedi Okorafor and the omnibus publication of her multi-award winning series Binti. This omnibus comprises the three Binti novellas published through Tor.com: Binti, Binti: Home, and Binti: The Night Masquerade plus a brand new short story – “Binti: Sacred Fire” – exclusive to this edition. I avoided reading detailed reviews of the series and novellas for fear of being spoiled, I just knew the novellas covered the title character Binti’s journey from small African village in Namibia to a prestigious galactic university – Oomza University. What I didn’t know, or would have guessed, was just what a transformative journey Binti would take.
Collected for the first time in an omnibus edition, the Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning Binti trilogy, the story of one extraordinary girl’s journey from her home to distant Oomza University.
In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family’s concerns, Binti’s talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey.\But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti’s spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination.
There is more to the history of the Medusae–and their war with the Khoush–than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace.
Collected now for the first time in omnibus form, follow Binti’s story in this groundbreaking sci-fi trilogy.
The first of the three novellas, Binti introduces readers to the character as she prepares to depart her family in a rather secretive fashion. Trained as a harmonizer, she is the first of her people, the Himba, to be offered entrance into the University. Her parents are not exactly thrilled with her decision since they see it as Binti turning her back on the family and her familial training as a harmonizer. When Binti is on the space ship hanging out with friends, tragedy strikes. Not only will Binti’s life never be the same, drastic changes are afoot for the University and Earth. Only because of Binti, largely her upbringing/training as a harmonizer, is an even more devastating tragedy averted. This is a powerful, incredible and amazingly packed story in and of itself. But is just the start of what’s to come.
In the short story, “Binti: Sacred Fire” Binti finds herself questioning who she’s become, reaffirming who she is, and how her past and present self can guide her in the future. This leads Binti to returning home to her Himba people in the aptly named Binti: Home. This novella really amps up the emotion, Binti’s family is large and as such, offer her a range of reactions to her leaving home and who she’s become, especially as a result of the events in the first novella. The hinted at conflict she left behind between her people (Himba) and their rivals, the Khoush provide much of the tension in this middle volume. The icing on that proverbial cake is the alien Meduse who joins Binti on her return home. The Meduse and Khoush who are also engaged in a long-term war, or at least they’re in the middle of a cease fire in Binti: Home.
Something hinted in volume three becomes more prominent as the title, Binti: The Night Masquerade brings the trilogy to a conclusion. The ramifications of the first installment continue to ripple out, now affecting Binti’s family. This is the longest of the three installments and as one would expect, brings the central conflict introduced in the first volume to a close.
To say that the saga of Binti is a modern masterwork is obvious. Despite the tragedy throughout the series, the physical tragedies, the emotional baggage Binti brought with her when we first met her to the profound affect those physical tragedies had on Binti, one thing was even more clear. Hope. This is very much a forward-thinking series with a charmingly brilliant and empathetic protagonist. Okorafor impressively packs these short novels/novellas with an incredible amount of emotion, fantastical ideas, and philosophical ideals in and of themselves. That the trilogy (plus short story) is under 400 pages and is so powerful is a marvel of storytelling.
I found myself rethinking of Octavia Butler’s masterwork Lilith’s Brood/Xenogenesis because of the transformation Binti undergoes in the first volume and the ripple effects of that decision throughout the saga. Those books happen to hold a very special place on my bookshelves as I point out at the end of the review linked at the start of this paragraph. Butler is a Science Fiction writer whose influence cannot be overstated so I would likely draw the comparison even if both Butler and Okorafor weren’t women of color. Does the comparison become stronger because of Butler and Okorafor’s shared gender and skin color? Probably. Either way, they are both fantastic SF sagas and worthy of reading and deep consideration.
Sure some of the meat of the tension that permeate the series is familiar – a child forging their own future rather than following the path their parents would have them follow being the strongest. A “Space University” is a fun trope of the genre, too. But the details that Okorafor adds to enhance the story – interesting SF-nal concepts, presentation of a culture/peoples not many readers have seen, truly alien aliens, elevate each of the short novels/novellas and series as a whole to what can arguably be a touchstone series in Science Fiction. This is a series that is a perfect blend of familiar and sense-of-wonder new that helps to define exactly what Science Fiction Literature is at its best.
I was utterly transfixed by Binti’s story, filled with wonder and awe, and found myself hungry for more of her story and more of Nnedi Okorafor’s Africanfuturism as a whole.
This edition sports a lovely cover by Greg Ruth and the book as a whole is a very striking which helps to make it stand out even beyond the fact that this is a book by Nnedi Okorafor.
© 2019 Rob H. Bedford
Highest recommendation.
February 2019 | Hardcover | 356 pages
http://nnedi.com
Excerpt: Binti: http://www.tor.com/2015/08/17/excerpts-binti-nnedi-okorafor/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, DAW Books
