Nnedi Okorafor

A collection of 21 stories from fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and speculative fiction. The stories include some tales from Okorafor’s previously-published short work and a new novella co-written with New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. There is a brief and interesting foreword by Whoopi Goldberg, and an author’s note at the end, explaining the origin and thought process behind each of the stories.

All the tales are imaginative and bizarre and weird and mind-blowing (in different ways). Yup, the attributes are as eclectic and quirky as the stories themselves. Many of the stories were 4 or 5 star reads for me. A few could have reached the same level were it not for their endings which brought down their impact. But if you have rate the book on the sheer creativity of the human mind, it would get a full rating. The imagery will also blow your mind. Such lush descriptions!

Some of my favourites from this collection were Kabu Kabu, Spider the Artist, The Ghastly Bird and The Carpet. I also enjoyed The Magical Negro, The House of Deformities, The Winds of Harmattan, Long Juju Man, Icon, The Popular Mechanic, The Baboon War, Asunder and The Palm-Tree Bandit.

Minor complaint: Some stories use some local African words (I’m not sure what language they are from) for which there's no translation or context provided. A glossary would certainly have helped because in many of these cases, the pun or joke isn’t clear simple because of the lacuna in understanding the word.

If you want to get a quick glimpse of Okorafor’s writing style before trying out a full-length work, this anthology would be perfect to begin with.


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In a Nutshell: An interesting character-oriented short story with a decent blend of science fiction, human flaws, and Afrofuturism sparkle. The ending was a bit disappointing, but overall, it was still better than I had anticipated. (It helped to have low expectations.)

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Plot Preview:

Tornado Onwubiko, a young Nigerian girl, is one of only seven people from earth who have been genetically matched for an inter-stellar journey supposed to last ten years. Halfway into the travel, Tornado will be meeting the other six travellers for the very first time, at a location just outside of Jupiter’s gravitational reach. After five years of being isolated in their custom spaceships, how will the seven travellers react to human company, especially when their rendezvous is supposed to last only for a week?
The story comes to us from Tornado’s first-person perspective.

This is the fifth standalone story in 'The Far Reaches’ series, described on Amazon as “a collection of science-fiction stories that stretch the imagination and open the heart.”

The first two stories in this collection were great for me and the next two were absolute duds. So I was a bit apprehensive about how this one would go. Thankfully, it was a pleasant enough experience, though it could have gone even better.

The story reads more like a drama, just with an unusual locational setting on the outskirts of Jupiter and some innovative spacecraft. It contains enough of sci-fi to make it feel like sci-fi and yet not so much as would boggle sci-fi newbies. As Tornado is a layperson who gets to travel in space because of her genetics than her geeky brains, she knows just the bare minimum of the science behind the customised spacecraft. Hence the content never seems too techy, though it is quite complex a concept. Of course, if you want more technical sci-fi content, you might be disappointed.

The sentient spacecraft, the seven ‘Miri’, are the highlight of this tale. Most of their functioning is kept off the page (for the above-mentioned reason), but whatever little we know about them is more than intriguing.

The plot focusses on the emotions and the people as much as on the tech, which also has emotions of its own. So overall, it feels more like a relatable human story than like an obscure sci-fi narrative. As this is a character-focussed piece, we get to know the various characters as well as possible within a 45-page narrative. The writing comes in Tornado’s first-person perspective, so her insights on the other travellers are our only clues to their behaviour. But each of them has a distinct personality, and not necessarily a goody-goody one, which makes their interactions interesting.

As is typical with African SFF authors, there is a strong focus on the local culture. The blend between the place and the futuristic scenario is impeccable. Afrofuturism holds one of the best aesthetics for me in sci-fi writing because of its intricate traditional post-modern medley.

The main reason my rating dropped a lot was the final quarter, or rather two particular plot points in that section. One of these, I never enjoy as a trope. I don’t want to go into spoilers, so I’ll just say I wish the story had not gone in that direction. The other one was such a huge red flag that I didn’t understand why Tornado’s opinion about said person didn’t change after that incident. It was a trust-shattering event that passed by with barely any reaction. Would she have felt the same had it been her pet cat instead of the other (magnificent) pet?

There are a couple of things left unanswered, but not so much as to make you feel like the ending left you hanging. Then again, the plot points that aren’t tackled are significant ones, so if you want all I’s dotted and all T’s crossed, this story isn’t for you.

This author is highly acclaimed for her Afro sci-fi writing. While I do want to read her Binti trilogy and the Akata Witch series, I have experience her works only in her short fiction. Her story in the Black Stars series, ‘Black Pages’, was an absolute dud for me, while her short story collection, ‘Kabu Kabu’, went much better. Having read this story, I now have a better sense of her writing style and know that she will deliver on the SFF angle even when she doesn’t deliver on the plot development.

Recommended, but not as a must-read. It is a creative story that needs a bit more refining to be memorable. It would have been fabulous as a novel because there’s much to explore with the Miri concept.

3.5 stars, rounding down for Chandra. IYKYK.

This standalone story is a part of the 'The Far Reaches’ collection, and is currently available free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

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In a Nutshell: Great ingredients in this short story, but they didn’t come together to make a delectable dish.

Story Synopsis:

Issaka is visiting home in “Timbouctou”, but his timing is bad. There has been a major al-Qaeda raid in the area, the local library has been burnt, and there are some ancient books at stake. When trouble comes to his doorstep, his only hope of safety is an ancient being named Faro, who has somehow resurrected from the flames of a book and is now guiding Issaka towards his past and safety.
The story comes to us from the third person limited perspective of Issaka and Faro.

Factors that made the story sound like it had great potential: the burning of libraries, the African setting, an OwnVoices story (to a certain extent), the idea of magical ancient beings, the al-Qaeda factor. If all these concepts had been woven together neatly, the story would have delivered a memorable impact. What I got instead was just elements that worked in patches but didn’t come together to make a seamless whole. The blurb, for once, is a little bit helpful as it helps understand a few points that aren’t even mentioned in the story.

This 30-page tale has a lot of “whats” but no “hows” or “whys”. We know that Faro is some kind of ancient being rises from the ashes of a burnt book, but the connection between Faro and Issaka stays vague. (There is a reason mentioned in the story, but this was of no use as it raises more questions than it answered.) There is no explanation about why Issaka (or his past version) trapped Faro in the book, who the other fantastical beings were, why Issaka could see spirits, what was his mother’s exact role, did his father know the paranormal presence in the lives of his wife and son,,… So many unanswered questions!

The ending doesn’t even deserve to be called an ending. It is not even the end of a scene, forget being the end of the story.

The only thing I liked about the story was Faro’s adventures with (or maybe I should say, ‘inside’) Issaka’s iPad. It was fun to see an old entity navigate the modern technological superhighway and grasping it even faster than we did.

There’s no mention of the country anywhere, which I guess makes even the place fantastical. “Timbouctou” seems to be a corrupted spelling of Timbuktu in Mali. The actual Timbuktu is the capital of the Tombouctou administrative province, so maybe the two names were conjoined to create this fictional location. Basically, this is the only major clue we can use to guess that the story is based in Mali, other than a reference to the locals’ hatred for the French. (Some reviews mention the country as being Afghanistan. I am guessing those readers presumed this from the mention of al-Qaeda. But the setting is clearly the ex-French colony of Mali.)

I feel that this tale might have worked better as a novella, if not a novel, as it had the potential to deliver a wallop. But in the current format, it ends with too many unanswered questions and offers no closure at all.

Not worth it.

1.5 stars.


‘The Black Pages’ is the second standalone story in the ‘Black Stars’ series, a collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. This series is available for free to Amazon Prime subscribers.





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