Book Review: "Noor" by Nnedi Okorafor

[If you haven't read this book, beware of the spoilers this review contains.]

4/5 stars

The thing about Nnedi Okorafor's books is that even a short story is packed with as much imagination, worldbuilding, and character development than many books of greater length. 

My first experience of Okorafor's writing was her Binti trilogy, in which a young African woman goes to university off-world, but manages to get into all sorts of spacefaring adventures, encountering various alien species and getting in the middle of matters of galactic intrigue. (Do yourself a favor and read that trilogy. The first book is Binti. You're welcome.) 

So it was with no hesitation that I jumped on a recent title of her's, called Noor.

"Noor" is an Arabic word referring to light. 

For a tale that mostly took place in a setting where the sun doesn't shine, it almost came off as ironic, until I got much farther along in the story. Noor also happens to be the name of a fictional invention that revolutionized renewable energy in this future Nigeria. 

This invention interweaves beautifully with the narrative in a way that closed the circle the Noor's inception started by the ending. (No spoilers!) Moreover, sunlight in general stands in for transparency and the exposure of immoral actions and dealings, but also, I think, spiritual wellbeing. As in seeing one's flaws and coming to accept and embrace them as part of the whole.  

As usual, I am getting ahead of myself. Let's back up a bit.

The world our protagonist, AO, inhabits is heavily influenced by mega-corporations and is social-media addicted. (So I guess not too far off from today?) AO is a cyborg, having been born with numerous birth defects. Cybernetic limbs become even more necessary when the damage to her body is made much worse by a catastrophic car accident when she was 14. 

She has managed to carve out a relatively quiet existence, learning to deal with the suspicion and hostility of the locals at her unnaturalness. Cybernetics are viewed with quite a lot of suspicion, leading some to call AO a demon or a freakish science experiment. AO deals with it until one day in the local market, when things go wrong. 

AO is attacked by men in the market, and in the process of defending herself, she ends up killing a few of them before fleeing north towards the desert. 

She meets DNA, a nomadic herdsman, and the two bond over their commonalities. (DNA was involved in an attack where several of his cattle were slaughtered. He was the only one to escape the slaughter, but is branded a terrorist, along with the rest of his people generally, for fighting back.) The technology of the nomads, including sand repelling devices and masks, gave me a Dune vibe.

AO and DNA form a strong bond that will be tested when their lives are threatened by the very corporation that granted AO her cybernetic enhancements. (Again, no spoilers!)

Yes, I left you all on a cliff-hanger. The only thing now is to go and read Noor. Trust me, it's well worth the time!

--BookOwl