Kirinyaga is a series of ten stories which were originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy and Science Fiction magazines between 1988 and 1996. All ten stories are collected in this book. Nearly all of them garnered a Hugo nomination, with two of them winning the award: "Kirinyaga" (Short Story, 1989) and "The Manamouki" (Novelette, 1991).

The stories share a main character: Koriba, a person who we first meet living on Earth in future Kenya. He was educated at Ivy League schools, but rejects European society completely. Instead, he embraces Kikuyu society, which existed in Kenya before the Europeans came onto the scene. The Earth government has set up some orbital platforms for people to live on, and Koriba has got one. He names it "Kirinyaga" and dedicates his life to the goal of recreating Kikuyu society with himself in charge (as the mundumugu, or witch-doctor).

This all sounds well and good. After all the European culture has caused a lot of damage to the planet and to people. Maybe a return to the simple way of life is justified. Maybe something different is a noble goal. Maybe Kikuyu culture is more fulfilling to the individual. But, it turns out that the Kikuyu culture brings quite a lot with it, like submission to a god named Ngai, the suppression of women, and various superstitions that are just superstitions until the actions taken as a result make them quite real.

It is a testament to the power of these stories that I feel so ambivalent about the character of Koriba. On the one hand, he's trying to uphold a tradition that has much beauty in it; beauty that was lost on Earth through the urban development and absorption of Kenya and its people. On the other hand, you just don't go doing what he does in these stories. Which side I personally come down on is a result of my belief that Koriba is not himself a believer in the Kikuyu gods and demons, which is evidenced by several instances of him taking things into his own hands during the book rather than leaving them to Ngai.

"The thing I had not realized is that a society can be a Utopia only for an instant - once it reaches a state of perfection it cannot change and still be a Utopia, and it is the nature of societies to grow and evolve."

This book really hooked me once I understood the premise. The premise as I see it is this: Koriba is a stubborn, all but unyielding, highly educated old man, with a gift for storytelling. One glorious day, he wins a planet to rule over and to fashion into a utopia to his liking. Being a devotee of the ways of Kenya, as it was before it was despoiled by Europe, his utopia is made of thatch, dirt, animal husbandry, nature's cruelty, and parables, the only tech being his computer through which he orders rains, droughts, etc. The great cause of stability demands cultural stagnation, and Koriba does his best to protect his dirt people from the "European" influences, lest they become "black Europeans," like the Kenyans did.

The story is structured as a series of episodes. In each, the insidious influences of the modern outside world attempt to poke a hole in his soap bubble, and Koriba must exert all his storytelling prowess and moderate knowledge of psychology to invoke the right parables and keep his people from straying from the path he has chosen for them.

I enjoyed the first half very much, except maybe the first chapter. The interactions between Koriba and his naive but curious tribe were delightful. The plot turns and even the moral lessons were amusing. Then half way through it stopped being funny, and as the story followed its sensible arc to completion, the main character reverted to the exasperating old man from chapter 1. By the end I was ready to become a black European myself if only the book would please make a joke. ( )

I thought this was a disappointing collection. There are ten stories to this book, each one published independently between 1988-1996. I had read several of the independent tales back then and thought them reasonably good - and good enough for me to want to read the full collection of them now. These are primarily parables of the Kikiyu tribe, recast in a future setting on an artificial planetoid. The idea was to create a Kikiyu utopia completely following the old ways of the tribe, pre-european and completely rejecting modern Kenya. We rather quickly can see that Kirinyaga is no utopia. Further, the falseness of the "Utopia" is pretty evident from the start and failure seemed the only option.

There are some good parts in here. But the story fails, as does the society eventually, because of the inflexible (and frequently nasty) main character Koriba who has his own inflexible ideas about everything and refuses to accept change or any sort of compromise. Since each chapter is a standalone piece there is some repetition between them. I took half a star off because of the author's afterword. ( )

I loved this book, it reflects a lot of today's reality, expecially our world's quick changes, and its many conflicts between past and present. An old scientist from Kenya, desperate because the "good old days" of Kenya's uncontaminated tribal life have gone, decides to recreate that world artificially, on another planet. Despite the futuristic concept, this is not much of a science fiction book, it's rather a book of ideas. The stories are interconnected, and they are part of the same overarching narrative. Elements of traditional Kenyan culture, African poetry, and some serious reflections on cultural changes are interwoven in this highly original work. Some stories have a ingenuity that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes stories, some others are truly moving. The main charachter may result annoying and arrogant, but by the end of the last story you also understand what the author thinks of his philosophy, and everything makes a little more sense. At least it did to me.

A few years ago I wrote the author a note complimenting him, and he cheerfully replied saying "Thank you!! Check out what else I can do!!", and he listed a few more of his books. ( )

Kirinyaga is a collection of inter-related short stories that center around a terraformed planet designed to be the new home of the Kikuyu tribe of Africa, where they can live their lives in the old, traditional way, without interference from modern society.

I almost stopped reading this book 2 chapters (stories, technically) into it. Two main reasons for this:
1- I really dislike parables. They are usually obvious, simplistic, and preachy.
2- I intensely dislike Koriba, the main character.

Pressing on, because I really did want to give this one a chance, I did come to see that the parables tied into the story, and it made sense. I still felt that they were obvious, simplistic, and preachy, but there was a kind of layering there that helped make them bearable within the stories.

The stories themselves were quite repetitive, and I felt that the outcome for Kirinyaga was pretty obvious right from the start. It was just how it would get there that was in question.

Coming back to Koriba... Ugh. Where to start? He's highly idealistic, a Type A personality. Hypocritical, uncompromising, hard to sympathize with, and manipulative, but very clever. I feel like I would have enjoyed this story much more if I had been able to identify with Koriba. I understand the desire to maintain tradition and culture, but the way that he went about it was so wrong to me, that every time I would start to feel a shred of agreement with him, he'd up the ante and I'd retreat again.

His ideal is rigidly maintaining the traditional Kikuyu lifestyle, as interpreted and controlled by himself, and never, ever deviating, even the slightest bit. No matter the cost. If people suffer, they suffer. If they die, they die. That's the Kikuyu way. It was disgusting to see the extents that he would go to to prove his point.

I just couldn't understand him. Not at all. I'm a fan of compromise, but he sees life in stark black and white terms. He's very much a fan of the "You're either with me or against me" line. There is no middle ground, no room for anyone else to think or want anything, because all that matters to Koriba is what he thinks and wants for Kirinyaga and for himself, as the self-proclaimed "last true Kikuyu". He pulls the strings, and keeps the rest of the people ignorant and superstitiously fearful, thinking that that's the only way to form a Kikuyu Utopia.

Perhaps if the story had been told from the perspective of a new inhabitant of Kirinyaga, trying to adapt, or even from Koriba's trainee, I would have liked it better. As it is, I think it was interesting, but could have been shorter, and it definitely made me think. ( )