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Who Fears Death #0
The Book of Phoenix
A fiery spirit dances from the pages of the Great Book. She brings the aroma of scorched sand and ozone. She has a story to tell….
The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor’s powerful, memorable, superhuman women.
Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7.
Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.
But Phoenix’s escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity’s future.
The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor’s powerful, memorable, superhuman women.
Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7.
Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.
But Phoenix’s escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity’s future.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published May 5, 2015
About the author
Nnedi Okorafor
149 books16.2k followersNnedi Okorafor is a New York Times Bestselling writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. The more specific terms for her works are africanfuturism and africanjujuism, both terms she coined and defined. Born in the United States to two Nigerian (Igbo) immigrant parents and visiting family in Nigeria since she was a child, the foundation and inspiration of Nnedi’s work is rooted in this part of Africa. Her many works include Who Fears Death (winner of the World Fantasy Award and in development at HBO as a TV series), the Nebula and Hugo award winning novella trilogy Binti (in development as a TV series), the Lodestar and Locus Award winning Nsibidi Scripts Series, LaGuardia (winner of a Hugo and Eisner awards for Best Graphic Novel) and her most recent novella Remote Control. Her debut novel Zahrah the Windseeker won the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. She lives with her daughter Anyaugo in Phoenix, AZ. Learn more about Nnedi at Nnedi.com and follow Nnedi on twitter (as @Nnedi), Facebook and Instagram.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 783 reviews
April 3, 2015
I loved writing this, though I tried so hard not to write it at all; it just kept coming and coming. And I had to see how it ended...or shall I say, how it all started. I tell people that WHO FEARS DEATH and THE BOOK OF PHOENIX are sisters. THE BOOK OF PHOENIX (the prequel to WHO FEARS DEATH) is older and angrier.
I wrote this on my blog and I still stand by the statement:
"How do the stories connect? Who is Phoenix to Onyesownu and Onyesonwu to Phoenix? You'll have to read them to find out. Don't bother going in with expectations; you'll probably be wrong. ;-)."
I wrote this on my blog and I still stand by the statement:
"How do the stories connect? Who is Phoenix to Onyesownu and Onyesonwu to Phoenix? You'll have to read them to find out. Don't bother going in with expectations; you'll probably be wrong. ;-)."
October 23, 2015
The beginning of this appeared, in slightly different form, in Clarkesworld (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/okora...), causing me some confusion as I begin to read it...
____
I loved 'Who Fears Death.' I very, very much liked the short story that forms the beginning of this book. I did not like this book. I was sorely disappointed by it.
I've been trying to think of how to articulate exactly why. I think that part of it is that the main character is a woman with an 'adult' intelligence, but who is chronologically only 2-3 years old. All she has known is life as an experimental subject. Although she was been allowed extensive reading material, which she consumes preternaturally quickly, she has been treated with extreme callousness, as a slave.
This is 'her' book (excepting the framing device), so it makes sense that the story is filled with an odd combination of naïveté and conspiracy-theory-style paranoia. However, I felt that this spilled out from the characterization of Phoenix, and Phoenix's point of view, and became a quality of the work itself. It also, I felt, has an odd style, one meant to evoke a folktale. That's something I usually like, but in this case, mixed with the near-future setting, I just felt that it wasn't working for me.
Another thing that didn't work for me was the rather simplistic viewpoint taken toward the 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' conflict. Interestingly, the 'heroine' here, although sympathetic, sees herself as a "villain." There's definitely moral ambiguity to the "good guys" of the book. However, the "bad guys" (the scientists) are just plain flat-out evil. If I'm being presented with such evil characters, I want more of an explanation of why they're so evil. I want to see their point of view, how they see themselves, how they justify what they're doing. Of course, we don't - we're in Phoenix's POV, and she understandably sees them as 100% evil. But again, I thought it weakened the story. (Full disclosure: I am a pretty pro-science person, and I am generally not a fan of the mad/evil scientist trope, so to win me over with it; you've got to be convincing. I wasn't convinced.)
I also felt like the events portrayed here weaken the context of 'Who Fears Death.' And what was with the bits endorsing the tired old trope that women are just too emotional? Was that meant to be funny? Serious? I couldn't tell. I also wasn't on board with a random and wholly unexamined slut-shaming comment from one of the "good-guys."
And then... some of it just seemed far-fetched and/or poorly-researched. I know, I know, we're talking experimental mutants here (and some randomly thrown-in alien stuff, too), but it makes everything more convincing if you START with a plausible scenario. And I'm sorry, but there was no excuse for Chapter 13. As an archivist, I probably care more about this than most people will... but:
____
The Chapter 13 Debacle
* To find records (the sole copy of these records!) on a recent, top-secret government experiment, recently updated with the status of experimental subjects, you WOULD NOT GO to the Library of Congress. Current records would be held by the governmental organization doing the experiment, and would only be submitted to an archive much later.
*IF you wanted to find government records that had been archived, you STILL WOULD NOT GO to the Library of Congress, you would go to NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration. In DC, different building, different organization.
*IF you went to DC to see research materials, EITHER at the LOC or NARA, you do not have to submit to a background check beforehand. There is no way anyone would pay high sums of money for a fake Reader Identification Card at the LOC. Anyone off the street is allowed to come in and get a Reader ID on the spot; the purpose of the ID is to keep track of materials, not to restrict access. Masquerading as a Middle-Eastern Prince would likely elevate suspicions, not lower them.
*When you come into an archive as a researcher, I have never heard of such an absurd thing as a one-hour limit being imposed. Time restrictions are solely based on the hours the facility is open, and when the archivist will have time to 'pull' your requested material.
*NO ARCHIVE IN THE WORLD is organized using the Dewey Decimal System. That system is used by public and elementary-to-high school level school libraries. Academic, research libraries and special collections usually use the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING SYSTEM. (Ya think the LC might use the LC system?) However, both those systems are designed for published materials. An archive will be organized by the archivist, according to what makes sense for the collection. The archivist creates a Finding Aid for the material, describing the folder structure of the collection, and outlining exactly what papers are in which folder. A Finding Aid would NOT be in a 'card catalog' format.
*I find it unlikely that in the future, the LOC or NARA would not have a digital catalog including the Finding Aid information. BUT, if this was a paper-copy-only kind of thing for whatever reason, the researchers STILL would not be ushered into the stacks by a 'guard' and left alone to poke around.
Archival researchers are generally ushered into a Reading Room. After their requests are made, an archivist will pull the material, and will bring the folders containing the requested material to them at their table. There may be a limit to the number of folders one can request at once, to limit the changes of the material becoming disorganized.
This information is all available to even a casual online researcher. There's even a video online of what you can expect as an archival researcher. I would expect that most authors are intimately familiar with the process.
More info at:
www.archives.gov
www.loc.gov
___
This book has some important things to say about racism, and some interesting ideas about the nature of storytelling. But both themes, I felt, were realized more fully in 'Who Fears Death.' I will definitely read more by Okorafor, but this was just not my favorite work by her.
____
I loved 'Who Fears Death.' I very, very much liked the short story that forms the beginning of this book. I did not like this book. I was sorely disappointed by it.
I've been trying to think of how to articulate exactly why. I think that part of it is that the main character is a woman with an 'adult' intelligence, but who is chronologically only 2-3 years old. All she has known is life as an experimental subject. Although she was been allowed extensive reading material, which she consumes preternaturally quickly, she has been treated with extreme callousness, as a slave.
This is 'her' book (excepting the framing device), so it makes sense that the story is filled with an odd combination of naïveté and conspiracy-theory-style paranoia. However, I felt that this spilled out from the characterization of Phoenix, and Phoenix's point of view, and became a quality of the work itself. It also, I felt, has an odd style, one meant to evoke a folktale. That's something I usually like, but in this case, mixed with the near-future setting, I just felt that it wasn't working for me.
Another thing that didn't work for me was the rather simplistic viewpoint taken toward the 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' conflict. Interestingly, the 'heroine' here, although sympathetic, sees herself as a "villain." There's definitely moral ambiguity to the "good guys" of the book. However, the "bad guys" (the scientists) are just plain flat-out evil. If I'm being presented with such evil characters, I want more of an explanation of why they're so evil. I want to see their point of view, how they see themselves, how they justify what they're doing. Of course, we don't - we're in Phoenix's POV, and she understandably sees them as 100% evil. But again, I thought it weakened the story. (Full disclosure: I am a pretty pro-science person, and I am generally not a fan of the mad/evil scientist trope, so to win me over with it; you've got to be convincing. I wasn't convinced.)
I also felt like the events portrayed here weaken the context of 'Who Fears Death.' And what was with the bits endorsing the tired old trope that women are just too emotional? Was that meant to be funny? Serious? I couldn't tell. I also wasn't on board with a random and wholly unexamined slut-shaming comment from one of the "good-guys."
And then... some of it just seemed far-fetched and/or poorly-researched. I know, I know, we're talking experimental mutants here (and some randomly thrown-in alien stuff, too), but it makes everything more convincing if you START with a plausible scenario. And I'm sorry, but there was no excuse for Chapter 13. As an archivist, I probably care more about this than most people will... but:
____
The Chapter 13 Debacle
* To find records (the sole copy of these records!) on a recent, top-secret government experiment, recently updated with the status of experimental subjects, you WOULD NOT GO to the Library of Congress. Current records would be held by the governmental organization doing the experiment, and would only be submitted to an archive much later.
*IF you wanted to find government records that had been archived, you STILL WOULD NOT GO to the Library of Congress, you would go to NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration. In DC, different building, different organization.
*IF you went to DC to see research materials, EITHER at the LOC or NARA, you do not have to submit to a background check beforehand. There is no way anyone would pay high sums of money for a fake Reader Identification Card at the LOC. Anyone off the street is allowed to come in and get a Reader ID on the spot; the purpose of the ID is to keep track of materials, not to restrict access. Masquerading as a Middle-Eastern Prince would likely elevate suspicions, not lower them.
*When you come into an archive as a researcher, I have never heard of such an absurd thing as a one-hour limit being imposed. Time restrictions are solely based on the hours the facility is open, and when the archivist will have time to 'pull' your requested material.
*NO ARCHIVE IN THE WORLD is organized using the Dewey Decimal System. That system is used by public and elementary-to-high school level school libraries. Academic, research libraries and special collections usually use the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING SYSTEM. (Ya think the LC might use the LC system?) However, both those systems are designed for published materials. An archive will be organized by the archivist, according to what makes sense for the collection. The archivist creates a Finding Aid for the material, describing the folder structure of the collection, and outlining exactly what papers are in which folder. A Finding Aid would NOT be in a 'card catalog' format.
*I find it unlikely that in the future, the LOC or NARA would not have a digital catalog including the Finding Aid information. BUT, if this was a paper-copy-only kind of thing for whatever reason, the researchers STILL would not be ushered into the stacks by a 'guard' and left alone to poke around.
Archival researchers are generally ushered into a Reading Room. After their requests are made, an archivist will pull the material, and will bring the folders containing the requested material to them at their table. There may be a limit to the number of folders one can request at once, to limit the changes of the material becoming disorganized.
This information is all available to even a casual online researcher. There's even a video online of what you can expect as an archival researcher. I would expect that most authors are intimately familiar with the process.
More info at:
www.archives.gov
www.loc.gov
___
This book has some important things to say about racism, and some interesting ideas about the nature of storytelling. But both themes, I felt, were realized more fully in 'Who Fears Death.' I will definitely read more by Okorafor, but this was just not my favorite work by her.
May 4, 2022
Genial lectura llena de rabia y dolor, habla de muchos temas de la manera en que solo Nnedi Okorafor puede hacerlo, con esa mezcla de distopía, futurismo y misticismo africano.
Una historia que es la formación de una heroína (¿o era antiheroína?), de su lucha por conseguir vengarse y encontrar la paz de los suyos. Habla de genocidio, esclavitud, de experimentos humanos... de la hipocresía de muchos que siguen pensando que el bien justifica los medios (mientras salgan beneficiados).
Es cierto que a veces parece que la historia está tan acerelarada como la protagonista, pero toda esa acción es la que hace que no puedas parar de leer.
Además tiene leves referencias a algunos de sus libros (es una remota precuela de 'Quien teme a la muerte') que me encantaron, por cierto.
Una historia que es la formación de una heroína (¿o era antiheroína?), de su lucha por conseguir vengarse y encontrar la paz de los suyos. Habla de genocidio, esclavitud, de experimentos humanos... de la hipocresía de muchos que siguen pensando que el bien justifica los medios (mientras salgan beneficiados).
Es cierto que a veces parece que la historia está tan acerelarada como la protagonista, pero toda esa acción es la que hace que no puedas parar de leer.
Además tiene leves referencias a algunos de sus libros (es una remota precuela de 'Quien teme a la muerte') que me encantaron, por cierto.
April 7, 2017
3.5-4 stars. The story opens with a old couple in a desert at some unspecified future. When the old man stumbles upon an old, abandoned cache of computers, he ends up accidentally triggering a recording which relates events from the past, which is still many years in our future. Nnedi Okorafor describes a frightening time in this past, where a large biotech firm LifeGen, though referred to throughout the story as Big Eyes, masquerades as a benign drug and cosmetic company, all the while actually conducting a variety of sickening and terrible human experiments. These experiments yield benefits such as advances in organ transplants but more importantly, in biological weapons in the form of humans, known as speciMen. The author also describes a world where climate change has had devastating effects, where worldwide temperatures are much higher, and oceans have flooded many cities.
The author follows a speciMen called Phoenix, a three year old with the body of a 40-year old woman. Phoenix and her follow speciMen at the New Yor City facility are constantly monitored and tested. Until the death of a friend and fellow speciMen, Saeed, Phoenix does not question her bizarre life at the facility. When her body begins vastly overheating because of her grief, Phoenix manages to destroy the facility and escape. Phoenix learns much more about LifeGen over the course of this story, and begins fighting back against her controllers.
Nnedi Okorafor has woven in many elements to this story; misogyny is present, unsurprisingly, and there is clear and vicious racism at work throughout this story:
-LifeGen's human subjects are primarily Africans or those of African descent, and range in age from children to adults; clearly brown lives are still seen as much less valuable than others.
-Okorafor also weaves the HeLa cells, with all their fraught history, into this narrative.
-Depressingly, law enforcement still believes that black and arab individuals are probably criminals and terrorists.
-Prisons are still overflowing with brown bodies.
This tale is dark, and disturbing. The speciMen's alterations are weird are fantastical and nauseating. Despite this, I wanted to know where were Phoenix's rage and pain going to take her, and how her actions would somehow connect with the present time of the old couple.
The author follows a speciMen called Phoenix, a three year old with the body of a 40-year old woman. Phoenix and her follow speciMen at the New Yor City facility are constantly monitored and tested. Until the death of a friend and fellow speciMen, Saeed, Phoenix does not question her bizarre life at the facility. When her body begins vastly overheating because of her grief, Phoenix manages to destroy the facility and escape. Phoenix learns much more about LifeGen over the course of this story, and begins fighting back against her controllers.
Nnedi Okorafor has woven in many elements to this story; misogyny is present, unsurprisingly, and there is clear and vicious racism at work throughout this story:
-LifeGen's human subjects are primarily Africans or those of African descent, and range in age from children to adults; clearly brown lives are still seen as much less valuable than others.
-Okorafor also weaves the HeLa cells, with all their fraught history, into this narrative.
-Depressingly, law enforcement still believes that black and arab individuals are probably criminals and terrorists.
-Prisons are still overflowing with brown bodies.
This tale is dark, and disturbing. The speciMen's alterations are weird are fantastical and nauseating. Despite this, I wanted to know where were Phoenix's rage and pain going to take her, and how her actions would somehow connect with the present time of the old couple.
October 23, 2019
I really enjoyed this book - it's quite layered: a book within a book within a story of inner stories! This is only my second Nnedi Okorafor read (I read Binti last year); and now I'm thinking she's going to be on my list of favorite authors.
I don't normally read science fiction and fantasy-although I have read and loved many works by Octavia Butler-so I always have to open myself up to the "foreignness" of entering a new world, accepting its mores and customs, languages, and rules, and trusting the narrator(s) to provide me with everything I need to take the journey.
Leading a strange and terrible cast of characters in The Book of Phoenix is a powerful fiery flying woman who dies and comes back to life multiple times, a man who melts through floors and walls, and another who eats shards of glass and bowls of sand. They are known as speciMen and "accelerated organisms" whose lives are harvested and controlled by the scientists, doctors, lab technicians and police force known as the "Big Eye," until........!
The storytelling is fantastical and fluid - despite its use of multiple tenses, histories, and blends of cultures with ancient traditions, science, and advanced technologies. It is highly imaginative, yet feels organic, magical and trancelike. There's some deepness toward the end that I know I am going to have to re-read.
The Book of Phoenix is the prequel to Who Fears Death - which has been sitting in my TBR pile for several months, and which I would have read first, had The Book of Phoenix not called to me from the shelves of my local library!
I don't normally read science fiction and fantasy-although I have read and loved many works by Octavia Butler-so I always have to open myself up to the "foreignness" of entering a new world, accepting its mores and customs, languages, and rules, and trusting the narrator(s) to provide me with everything I need to take the journey.
Leading a strange and terrible cast of characters in The Book of Phoenix is a powerful fiery flying woman who dies and comes back to life multiple times, a man who melts through floors and walls, and another who eats shards of glass and bowls of sand. They are known as speciMen and "accelerated organisms" whose lives are harvested and controlled by the scientists, doctors, lab technicians and police force known as the "Big Eye," until........!
The storytelling is fantastical and fluid - despite its use of multiple tenses, histories, and blends of cultures with ancient traditions, science, and advanced technologies. It is highly imaginative, yet feels organic, magical and trancelike. There's some deepness toward the end that I know I am going to have to re-read.
The Book of Phoenix is the prequel to Who Fears Death - which has been sitting in my TBR pile for several months, and which I would have read first, had The Book of Phoenix not called to me from the shelves of my local library!
June 5, 2017
To my shock this is a DNF at 63%. I loved Who Fears Death and I've been wanting to read this for more than two years.
Where to begin?
The Writing:
This book reads like it needed about 10 more rewrites for a number of reasons. First, it's a blend of sci-fi and fantasy but it reads like it was too unfocused to fit in either genre rather than this being a deliberate choice. It's a mess of unrigorous somewhere-in-the-middle and that's-good-enough.
Second, a few more rewrites might have killed this little problem:
p19 "So you are not American?" I asked. "But you live here. You work here. You-"
"I'm legal, but not a citizen. Not yet. I will be. My work with you will earn me the pull I need."
P52 The woman from Nigeria whom I now realized was most likely banking on the benefits of experimentation on me to earn her American citizenship.
I only marked one of these but there was more than one of these duplicate realizations. You can't realize something and then realize it again, except when a book needs some editing.
The Story:
Am I really supposed to believe that the only copy of a secret company's human experiments is at the Library of Congress? Really?
Where's the plot? Did I miss it? Is a plot really something you can miss?
The whole book read like she sat down and pounded out the story without bothering to do any research or make the story internally consistent. I'm extremely disappointed because I've loved other work by the author and I thought I would get a story of similar quality. This book was such a mess that I found myself getting cranky and I could not finish it.
Where to begin?
The Writing:
This book reads like it needed about 10 more rewrites for a number of reasons. First, it's a blend of sci-fi and fantasy but it reads like it was too unfocused to fit in either genre rather than this being a deliberate choice. It's a mess of unrigorous somewhere-in-the-middle and that's-good-enough.
Second, a few more rewrites might have killed this little problem:
p19 "So you are not American?" I asked. "But you live here. You work here. You-"
"I'm legal, but not a citizen. Not yet. I will be. My work with you will earn me the pull I need."
P52 The woman from Nigeria whom I now realized was most likely banking on the benefits of experimentation on me to earn her American citizenship.
I only marked one of these but there was more than one of these duplicate realizations. You can't realize something and then realize it again, except when a book needs some editing.
The Story:
Am I really supposed to believe that the only copy of a secret company's human experiments is at the Library of Congress? Really?
Where's the plot? Did I miss it? Is a plot really something you can miss?
The whole book read like she sat down and pounded out the story without bothering to do any research or make the story internally consistent. I'm extremely disappointed because I've loved other work by the author and I thought I would get a story of similar quality. This book was such a mess that I found myself getting cranky and I could not finish it.
July 29, 2015
"We were so colonized we built our own shackles," notes the titular heroine of The Book of Phoenix, perhaps the angriest SFF novel to broadside the genre since Joanna Russ's The Female Man. Whereas in Lagoon, Afrofuturist Nnedi Okorafor seemed to kick up her heels and cast a satirical eye on the fraught political relationships between Africa and the west, The Book of Phoenix hits America's bloody history of oppression, slavery and colonialism with all the incendiary rage it's earned. This will make some readers distinctly uncomfortable. These will be the readers perhaps most in need of self-reflection.
A prequel to Okorafor's World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, The Book of Phoenix is radically different in tone, hewing more closely to SFnal motifs in contrast to the other novel's epic mythicism and magical realism. Told as an oral history in a brief but electrifying 230 pages, it's the story of an "accelerated woman" who's been genetically engineered in a New York lab ominously named Tower 7, by a institute called LifeGen that's informally known (mostly by those it victimizes) as Big Eye. Phoenix Okore, whose physical appearance is that of a normal 40-ish woman despite being only two actual years old, has no particular reason at first to dread her existence in a prison facility for similarly modified "non-human persons" like herself. But when her lover and fellow "speciMen" Saeed is killed under dubious circumstances while exploring an off-limits part of the lab, Phoenix learns that all is not what it seems and engineers an escape with the aid of another inmate, Mmuo, who can pass through solid matter. (continued...)
A prequel to Okorafor's World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, The Book of Phoenix is radically different in tone, hewing more closely to SFnal motifs in contrast to the other novel's epic mythicism and magical realism. Told as an oral history in a brief but electrifying 230 pages, it's the story of an "accelerated woman" who's been genetically engineered in a New York lab ominously named Tower 7, by a institute called LifeGen that's informally known (mostly by those it victimizes) as Big Eye. Phoenix Okore, whose physical appearance is that of a normal 40-ish woman despite being only two actual years old, has no particular reason at first to dread her existence in a prison facility for similarly modified "non-human persons" like herself. But when her lover and fellow "speciMen" Saeed is killed under dubious circumstances while exploring an off-limits part of the lab, Phoenix learns that all is not what it seems and engineers an escape with the aid of another inmate, Mmuo, who can pass through solid matter. (continued...)
May 27, 2015
A dismal, brutal, and unforgiving book. It's a sort of power-fantasy for the disenfranchised, which leaves you with little sympathy for them whatsoever. The antagonists are undeveloped and one-sided, the protagonist is immortal and therefore incapable of generating suspense, the plot meanders even though the main character's goal is straightforward and simple-minded: destruction. The prose waffles between mysticism and cliche. I did feel compelled to read to the finish; I was only hoping the finish would be more nuanced and original.
The soul of a juvenile comic book trapped in a novel.
The soul of a juvenile comic book trapped in a novel.
February 23, 2024
The protagonist of this novel is a genetically modified woman with special abilities similar to the phoenix of folklore. Chronologically, she is only three years old, but she ages quickly and now appears to be around forty. She has been allowed to read and is a fast learner. The storyline follows her experiences in a futuristic dystopian world, where beings are created and then used in scientific experiments by the government. The protagonist is initially called Phoenix, and she renames herself later.
It is a speculative-science-fiction-fantasy combination set in the future after an unexplained apocalyptic event. It is structured as a book within a book. An older man finds an abandoned digital archive in a cave, containing “The Book of Phoenix,” which constitutes the bulk of the narrative. The genetically modified lifeforms are kept in towers and their lives are strictly controlled. The death of a loved one leads to a rebellion, and Phoenix escapes.
This novel examines the topics of race, power, identity, and storytelling. The majority of those confined in the towers are descended from Africans, commenting on America’s sad history of racial oppression. It draws on African storytelling traditions and folklore, and there are elements of magical realism sprinkled throughout. Phoenix views herself as a villain but is cast in the heroine’s role. This mix of villain/hero is related to her identity. She has been kept in an oppressive environment and told she is not worthy, but when she breaks free, she gains agency and must decide what to do with her powers.
There are many Old Testament allusions in the book that add to the symbolism. There are a few plot holes, and the “science” is pretty far-fetched (very little could be achieved at present, but this is set in the future). I do not read much fantasy, but I found this book unusual, creative, and relevant.
It is a speculative-science-fiction-fantasy combination set in the future after an unexplained apocalyptic event. It is structured as a book within a book. An older man finds an abandoned digital archive in a cave, containing “The Book of Phoenix,” which constitutes the bulk of the narrative. The genetically modified lifeforms are kept in towers and their lives are strictly controlled. The death of a loved one leads to a rebellion, and Phoenix escapes.
This novel examines the topics of race, power, identity, and storytelling. The majority of those confined in the towers are descended from Africans, commenting on America’s sad history of racial oppression. It draws on African storytelling traditions and folklore, and there are elements of magical realism sprinkled throughout. Phoenix views herself as a villain but is cast in the heroine’s role. This mix of villain/hero is related to her identity. She has been kept in an oppressive environment and told she is not worthy, but when she breaks free, she gains agency and must decide what to do with her powers.
There are many Old Testament allusions in the book that add to the symbolism. There are a few plot holes, and the “science” is pretty far-fetched (very little could be achieved at present, but this is set in the future). I do not read much fantasy, but I found this book unusual, creative, and relevant.
June 1, 2016
The Book of Phoenix is a beautifully written tale, combining elements of fantasy & mythology with very cool science fiction (Anansi droids, anyone?). It is a story of love, death, friendship and a battle for justice/redemption. I really enjoyed this one and can see why it has been nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award - totally deserving.
Read
July 27, 2015I first became aware of Nnedi Okorafor because of a short story I read called “Spider the Artist.” I sought out her other works, and I found myself totally wrapped up in a story that I later learned would be at the heart of the The Book of Phoenix. Phoenix and her story exist in that shimmering space that marks where science fiction and magical realism overlap. Science, for better or for worse, drives the narrative. It is the thing that helped make Phoenix and the others who they are, and it is also the thing that seeks to destroy them or, at least, to reshape them to suit its purpose. It is an epic battle between right and wrong, though the line that separates the two sides is not always clearly defined. The Book of Phoenix hit all of my emotional checkboxes. The only way it could have been better is if it were a graphic novel. Those images demand to be drawn. Someone needs to get on that post haste. –Cassandra Neace
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
from The Best Books of 2015 So Far: http://bookriot.com/2015/07/08/the-be...
June 5, 2017
'The Book of Phoenix', published in 2015, is the prequel to the events in Who Fears Death. I have not read 'Who Fears Death' which was published in 2010, so my review is probably missing insight.
The character Sunateel enjoyed taking little vacations sometimes from his nomadic tent life with his wife by camping out alone in the desert, exploring. After a storm, he decides to take off. He discovers a cave filled with computers from the Black Days, which occurred two hundred years ago. The belief is that the god Ani brought on an Apocalypse, and they all are now living in the aftermath of the Black Days, because of sins of the Okeke. Fascinated by the old technology, he touched one of the computers - and it turned on. Sunateel's portable, which he had clipped to his pants, pinged in response to some signal from the old computer, and then his portable downloaded a big file.
The file turns out to be an audio file! Sunateel listens....and a woman called Phoenix speaks.
Phoenix, an accelerated and modified human, did not mind being one of the people imprisoned in an apartment building, Tower 7, in Manhattan. The scientists did horrible painful tests on her body on occasion, but it was all she knew while she grew up from a baby to adult. She had matured in only two years, but she appeared to be forty years old. She knew she was a dangerous abomination because she was permitted all of the books to read that she wanted, including about Tower 7 and what they did there. In time, though, because of the possible murder of her closest friend Saeed in Tower 7, she figures out being knowledgeable is not the same thing as having wisdom. Saeed saw something so terrible while walking around Tower 7 he could not speak of it, but afterwards he wanted to escape. Later, it is announced he died.
Everyone who has been genetically created in the Tower, the speciMen, were watched all of the time by the 'Big Eye' - scientists, lab assistants, technicians, guards and police. The speciMen included the woman with a twisted spine who can turn her head around like an owl. There are the baboons who speak in sign language. There is the woman with four breasts, and the woman with lion's teeth and claws. Saeed ate only rocks, sand and metal. All of the speciMen are of African or Arab descent. They all know they have been genetically tweaked and they are captive, but they remain compliant and complacent.
Phoenix slowly realizes: "We’re so colonized that we build our own shackles”. (When this same realization struck me too in the real world, I was incandescent with rage at myself. I love this quote, although my situation was a little different.)
Phoenix is overwhelmed by grief when Saeed dies. She doesn't want to live in Tower 7 anymore. She had been experiencing an occasional fever which had been getting more and more hotter whenever it started, but after Saeed's death, this fever has begun to climb to 300 degrees. Her skin is drying out so much when the fever strikes she needs to use shea butter, and all of her hair falls out. When another wave of heat overcomes her, she burns up the e-reader she was holding in her hand, which causes the 'Big Eye' to ramp up their security when testing her. She fears the scientists more and more because of their increasing violence to her, and after Saeed dies, she makes a run for it.
Her powers grow, and so does her rage. She sees the buried truths behind the social lies serving as the foundation for systematic slavery, racism, the manipulation behind creating religious myths, biased justice, abridged history, the realities of human nature, death, powerful elite class and race entitlements, evil.
Should she attempt to destroy 'Big Eye?' (Big cultural believing society collective 'I'?) and the Towers (Ivory?)? All Mankind? Is revenge evil or is it justice? Is any apocalypse justified and who has the right to make the decision?
I thought 'The Book of Phoenix' a very cool literary science-fiction story. I enjoyed the rage of the main character, Phoenix Okore, most of all. Who hasn't thought the worst thing to happen in earth's history was the evolution and survival of our species, whether natural or scientifically enhanced?
This is the second novel by Nnedi Okorafor that I have read. I am getting a sense that the author is processing a shocked intellectual angst, which may be similar to my own during my young adult and middle-aged years. It doesn't go away, actually, except for the shock which slowly dissipates, but a low-key rage burns for awhile. Adults teach children enormous lies along with facts to protect them mostly; and sadly, many adults believe their own lies and myths. For many of us, college is where fantasies and myths are finally dispelled. For others of us, a personal tragedy may reveal and destroy the fairy tale we didn't know was a fairy tale.
Quoted from the book, "Who is writing you?"
I really loved this sentence by Okorafor: "Human beings make terrible gods."
The character Sunateel enjoyed taking little vacations sometimes from his nomadic tent life with his wife by camping out alone in the desert, exploring. After a storm, he decides to take off. He discovers a cave filled with computers from the Black Days, which occurred two hundred years ago. The belief is that the god Ani brought on an Apocalypse, and they all are now living in the aftermath of the Black Days, because of sins of the Okeke. Fascinated by the old technology, he touched one of the computers - and it turned on. Sunateel's portable, which he had clipped to his pants, pinged in response to some signal from the old computer, and then his portable downloaded a big file.
The file turns out to be an audio file! Sunateel listens....and a woman called Phoenix speaks.
Phoenix, an accelerated and modified human, did not mind being one of the people imprisoned in an apartment building, Tower 7, in Manhattan. The scientists did horrible painful tests on her body on occasion, but it was all she knew while she grew up from a baby to adult. She had matured in only two years, but she appeared to be forty years old. She knew she was a dangerous abomination because she was permitted all of the books to read that she wanted, including about Tower 7 and what they did there. In time, though, because of the possible murder of her closest friend Saeed in Tower 7, she figures out being knowledgeable is not the same thing as having wisdom. Saeed saw something so terrible while walking around Tower 7 he could not speak of it, but afterwards he wanted to escape. Later, it is announced he died.
Everyone who has been genetically created in the Tower, the speciMen, were watched all of the time by the 'Big Eye' - scientists, lab assistants, technicians, guards and police. The speciMen included the woman with a twisted spine who can turn her head around like an owl. There are the baboons who speak in sign language. There is the woman with four breasts, and the woman with lion's teeth and claws. Saeed ate only rocks, sand and metal. All of the speciMen are of African or Arab descent. They all know they have been genetically tweaked and they are captive, but they remain compliant and complacent.
Phoenix slowly realizes: "We’re so colonized that we build our own shackles”. (When this same realization struck me too in the real world, I was incandescent with rage at myself. I love this quote, although my situation was a little different.)
Phoenix is overwhelmed by grief when Saeed dies. She doesn't want to live in Tower 7 anymore. She had been experiencing an occasional fever which had been getting more and more hotter whenever it started, but after Saeed's death, this fever has begun to climb to 300 degrees. Her skin is drying out so much when the fever strikes she needs to use shea butter, and all of her hair falls out. When another wave of heat overcomes her, she burns up the e-reader she was holding in her hand, which causes the 'Big Eye' to ramp up their security when testing her. She fears the scientists more and more because of their increasing violence to her, and after Saeed dies, she makes a run for it.
Her powers grow, and so does her rage. She sees the buried truths behind the social lies serving as the foundation for systematic slavery, racism, the manipulation behind creating religious myths, biased justice, abridged history, the realities of human nature, death, powerful elite class and race entitlements, evil.
Should she attempt to destroy 'Big Eye?' (Big cultural believing society collective 'I'?) and the Towers (Ivory?)? All Mankind? Is revenge evil or is it justice? Is any apocalypse justified and who has the right to make the decision?
I thought 'The Book of Phoenix' a very cool literary science-fiction story. I enjoyed the rage of the main character, Phoenix Okore, most of all. Who hasn't thought the worst thing to happen in earth's history was the evolution and survival of our species, whether natural or scientifically enhanced?
This is the second novel by Nnedi Okorafor that I have read. I am getting a sense that the author is processing a shocked intellectual angst, which may be similar to my own during my young adult and middle-aged years. It doesn't go away, actually, except for the shock which slowly dissipates, but a low-key rage burns for awhile. Adults teach children enormous lies along with facts to protect them mostly; and sadly, many adults believe their own lies and myths. For many of us, college is where fantasies and myths are finally dispelled. For others of us, a personal tragedy may reveal and destroy the fairy tale we didn't know was a fairy tale.
Quoted from the book, "Who is writing you?"
I really loved this sentence by Okorafor: "Human beings make terrible gods."
September 22, 2017
This short, futuristic novel is essentially a power/revenge fantasy focused on the exploitation of people of African descent, especially in medical research. (Calling it a power fantasy isn’t necessarily a criticism; much of sci-fi and fantasy consists of power fantasies for white male nerds, so it seems only fair for others to get a cut of the action.) Despite a compelling start and socially relevant themes, however, this one flopped for me.
Phoenix lives in a future America in which powerful corporations perform medical experimentation on people, mostly black, who live locked up in mysterious Towers. She knows nothing else and is content until something awful happens to her best friend and love interest, at which point she starts to rebel and discovers the powers with which she was endowed. This is a prequel to a post-apocalyptic fantasy tale and has a frame story, so it’s no secret that somewhere along the way the world as we know it is destroyed, and most readers will guess how; nevertheless, this is your warning that this review will contain SPOILERS.
Okorafor sets the stage well, with an oppressive dystopian setting and a young protagonist struggling to make sense of it and survive. The first third of the book makes for compelling reading, with a fast-paced story full of danger set in a believable world. But as in the companion book, Who Fears Death, the protagonist becomes too powerful, leaching the story of dramatic tension. Once Phoenix learns that she can fly for days on end, die and regenerate as many times as necessary, and move through time and space in an instant and apparently without limit, the story no longer presents obstacles that really challenge her. She attacks one of the Towers alone and without planning and succeeds, so the long stretch toward the end spent preparing to attack another with a group seems unnecessary and anticlimactic (though from a narrative perspective, it allows some down time and for Phoenix to bond more with other characters).
The end also proved unsatisfying. The connection to the writing of the Great Book and the world of Who Fears Death also seems strained, though I enjoyed the chapters of the frame story as an independent short story.
Meanwhile, the characterization is fairly simplistic; reviewers who have interpreted this as intentional due to Phoenix’s chronological age may well be correct, but I have my doubts, as the book portrays Phoenix as an adult woman in her intellectual capacity and ability to form relationships. Likewise, the writing style is simple and sometimes staccato, which suits the dystopian setting fine. The world has texture and is a conceivable outgrowth of our world, an important but often-overlooked element of a good dystopia. On the other hand, some details seem under-researched: the bizarre chapter in which, despite the secrecy in which these projects are shrouded, the only records of ongoing medical experiments turn out to be catalogued and housed in hard copy in the Library of Congress (which apparently will switch to Dewey Decimal in the future?) available for browsing by anyone with ID, has been thoroughly dissected in other reviews.
Overall, while this book has some interesting ideas, their execution proved to be a letdown. Not having thought much of Who Fears Death either, I’m ready to conclude that Okorafor’s work is not for me.
Phoenix lives in a future America in which powerful corporations perform medical experimentation on people, mostly black, who live locked up in mysterious Towers. She knows nothing else and is content until something awful happens to her best friend and love interest, at which point she starts to rebel and discovers the powers with which she was endowed. This is a prequel to a post-apocalyptic fantasy tale and has a frame story, so it’s no secret that somewhere along the way the world as we know it is destroyed, and most readers will guess how; nevertheless, this is your warning that this review will contain SPOILERS.
Okorafor sets the stage well, with an oppressive dystopian setting and a young protagonist struggling to make sense of it and survive. The first third of the book makes for compelling reading, with a fast-paced story full of danger set in a believable world. But as in the companion book, Who Fears Death, the protagonist becomes too powerful, leaching the story of dramatic tension. Once Phoenix learns that she can fly for days on end, die and regenerate as many times as necessary, and move through time and space in an instant and apparently without limit, the story no longer presents obstacles that really challenge her. She attacks one of the Towers alone and without planning and succeeds, so the long stretch toward the end spent preparing to attack another with a group seems unnecessary and anticlimactic (though from a narrative perspective, it allows some down time and for Phoenix to bond more with other characters).
The end also proved unsatisfying. The connection to the writing of the Great Book and the world of Who Fears Death also seems strained, though I enjoyed the chapters of the frame story as an independent short story.
Meanwhile, the characterization is fairly simplistic; reviewers who have interpreted this as intentional due to Phoenix’s chronological age may well be correct, but I have my doubts, as the book portrays Phoenix as an adult woman in her intellectual capacity and ability to form relationships. Likewise, the writing style is simple and sometimes staccato, which suits the dystopian setting fine. The world has texture and is a conceivable outgrowth of our world, an important but often-overlooked element of a good dystopia. On the other hand, some details seem under-researched: the bizarre chapter in which, despite the secrecy in which these projects are shrouded, the only records of ongoing medical experiments turn out to be catalogued and housed in hard copy in the Library of Congress (which apparently will switch to Dewey Decimal in the future?) available for browsing by anyone with ID, has been thoroughly dissected in other reviews.
Overall, while this book has some interesting ideas, their execution proved to be a letdown. Not having thought much of Who Fears Death either, I’m ready to conclude that Okorafor’s work is not for me.
May 22, 2016
"Human beings make terrible gods."
I love the novel Who Fears Death with a deep, abiding passion. When I read it, I re-read it instantly. I recommended it to everyone, even people who never read fantasy or science fiction. I felt it transcended genre, was doing something new, I couldn't say enough about it.
That's a pretty big shoe to fill, even by the same author. I knew this book was coming out but had lost track of it, reminded only when discussing the nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, of which The Book of Phoenix is a shortlisted member. It is probably rare for a prequel to be an award nominee, so that got me to move it to the top of my to-read list.
In Who Fears Death, you join the characters in what feels, at first, to be a fantasy, mythology-based world. Slowly you realize that it is post-technology Africa, in the future of our actual world. How did that happen? Why are there computers in caves? What happened to the societies that made those machines? I imagine the author being haunted by these questions too, and by characters who had more stories to tell. That is where this novel comes in.
I enjoyed reading it, but also felt it had been too long since reading Who Fears Death. I should have re-read it first, or perhaps now. I loved the accelerated humans in the social climate of rejecting control of the 1% - in some ways it felt very plausible, all of these stories coming out of what exists in our world now.
There are a few details the author just gets wrong that sometimes pull me out of the story; details that probably would not bother me as much if I were not a librarian! Althea Ann lists these comprehensively so I won't bother but I think if there are moments where I found the book less successful, it is those moments connecting most directly to our present. But to me, these tiny minute issues do not overall detract from my enjoyment of the novel. There is so much that is fresh and different here, that is was well worth my time. I found myself taking breaks to think about the story after some of the major events rather than simply plowing through, a mark of a good read.
This is my second Okorafor of the year, after enjoying Lagoon very much in January!
Since I mentioned the Arthur C. Clarke Award, I'm now pretty interested in reading some of the rest of the short list. I've already read the Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which I loved, and it was in good company with the Okorafor. I wonder if the others are as good! I'm kind of burned out on the Hugo and Nebula.
I love the novel Who Fears Death with a deep, abiding passion. When I read it, I re-read it instantly. I recommended it to everyone, even people who never read fantasy or science fiction. I felt it transcended genre, was doing something new, I couldn't say enough about it.
That's a pretty big shoe to fill, even by the same author. I knew this book was coming out but had lost track of it, reminded only when discussing the nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, of which The Book of Phoenix is a shortlisted member. It is probably rare for a prequel to be an award nominee, so that got me to move it to the top of my to-read list.
In Who Fears Death, you join the characters in what feels, at first, to be a fantasy, mythology-based world. Slowly you realize that it is post-technology Africa, in the future of our actual world. How did that happen? Why are there computers in caves? What happened to the societies that made those machines? I imagine the author being haunted by these questions too, and by characters who had more stories to tell. That is where this novel comes in.
I enjoyed reading it, but also felt it had been too long since reading Who Fears Death. I should have re-read it first, or perhaps now. I loved the accelerated humans in the social climate of rejecting control of the 1% - in some ways it felt very plausible, all of these stories coming out of what exists in our world now.
There are a few details the author just gets wrong that sometimes pull me out of the story; details that probably would not bother me as much if I were not a librarian! Althea Ann lists these comprehensively so I won't bother but I think if there are moments where I found the book less successful, it is those moments connecting most directly to our present. But to me, these tiny minute issues do not overall detract from my enjoyment of the novel. There is so much that is fresh and different here, that is was well worth my time. I found myself taking breaks to think about the story after some of the major events rather than simply plowing through, a mark of a good read.
This is my second Okorafor of the year, after enjoying Lagoon very much in January!
Since I mentioned the Arthur C. Clarke Award, I'm now pretty interested in reading some of the rest of the short list. I've already read the Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which I loved, and it was in good company with the Okorafor. I wonder if the others are as good! I'm kind of burned out on the Hugo and Nebula.
August 7, 2019
Such an interesting, fascinating story of self-discovery and revenge. Sadly I felt that it fizzled out a bit in the end. I almost wish it hadn’t been a precurser to Who Fears Death, the two books are remarkably different in style and I’d almost forgotten they were connected until the very end. Still, well written and culturally informative as well, which is a thing I love about Nnedi.
June 14, 2017
This was a 3.5 Star read for me. I thought it was an interesting story but the execution seemed a little off. The storyline rushed. Not enough world building before and after Phoenix. Also, the book was told from her point of view. Perhaps because of the premise, the character voice was off. Never quite adult or child. Not enough information. I haven't read Who Fears Death yet, but there were some sledgehammers dropped in this tale to provide the link between the books. No nuance. However...I definitely want to read Who Fears Death now. I'm definitely hooked into the story.
3.5 Rounded up to 4 because I enjoyed the story and want to read more...
3.5 Rounded up to 4 because I enjoyed the story and want to read more...
January 26, 2016
Wow, I was completely blind sided by this audio! The story is near future scifi with awesome genetically modified humans with powers and a lot of inspiration from different African myths. The main character is the kind of anti-heroine I love and she's mostly Nigerian! The audiobook narration is gorgeous and brings these characters to life with excellent accents. Highly recommended and I'm a new fan of this author!
July 12, 2015
I’ve loved every line of this novel! The Book of Phoenix is a great example of what Delany thinks is science-fiction, a literature that uses a special language to talk not about future, but about the present and its potentiality, and about the lingering shadows of the past.
February 21, 2022
Una historia de venganza, de autodescubrimiento, de la búsqueda de libertad y de la eterna lucha del bien y del mal.
El Libro de Fénix transcurre varios cientos de años antes de los sucesos narrados en Quién Teme a la Muerte, aunque se puede leer sin problemas sin haber leído dicho libro. Funciona a modo de precuela.
La idea de los SpeciMen me ha encantado, una especie de seres con capacidades sobrenaturales creados a partir de la modificación genética. Y Fénix, la protagonista, me ha parecido un muy buen personaje. El elenco secundario me ha fallado un poquito y no ha terminado de convencerme.
La trama es sencilla y directa, no se entretiene mucho en explicaciones, queda muy claro hacia donde avanza en todo momento aunque me hubiera gustado alguna explicación más para acabar de entender un par de cosillas.
Y me ha gustado también como esta escrito, casi parece como si estuvieras escuchando un cuento (cosa que le va genial a la historia) y el estilo de la autora es capaz de transmitir las sensaciones a la perfección.
El Libro de Fénix transcurre varios cientos de años antes de los sucesos narrados en Quién Teme a la Muerte, aunque se puede leer sin problemas sin haber leído dicho libro. Funciona a modo de precuela.
La idea de los SpeciMen me ha encantado, una especie de seres con capacidades sobrenaturales creados a partir de la modificación genética. Y Fénix, la protagonista, me ha parecido un muy buen personaje. El elenco secundario me ha fallado un poquito y no ha terminado de convencerme.
La trama es sencilla y directa, no se entretiene mucho en explicaciones, queda muy claro hacia donde avanza en todo momento aunque me hubiera gustado alguna explicación más para acabar de entender un par de cosillas.
Y me ha gustado también como esta escrito, casi parece como si estuvieras escuchando un cuento (cosa que le va genial a la historia) y el estilo de la autora es capaz de transmitir las sensaciones a la perfección.
June 10, 2015
Even more amazing than the other two Nnedi Okorafor books I've read ("Akata Witch" and "Who Fears Death", both of which tie in a bit with this). A 6-star novel, if there is such a thing (THERE IS NOW, OK). Here is yet another sympathetic, multi-layered heroine at the helm of a hypnotic story.
While "The Book of Phoenix" is certainly a pulse-pounding sci-fi novel, it also tackles colonialism and non-consensual medical experimentation, and is laced with acute moments of both human innocence and human cruelty.
Okorafor continues to be a fearless, original, captivating, and heartfelt writer.
I can not wait to get my hands on "Lagoon".
While "The Book of Phoenix" is certainly a pulse-pounding sci-fi novel, it also tackles colonialism and non-consensual medical experimentation, and is laced with acute moments of both human innocence and human cruelty.
Okorafor continues to be a fearless, original, captivating, and heartfelt writer.
I can not wait to get my hands on "Lagoon".
August 13, 2016
Okay more on this later but I need to say that I think Nnedi Okorafor is the one true heir to Octavia Butler's legacy. All power and respect to all the other writers who love Butler, but most of them don't get that Butler loved genre, not just ideas & social justice! She was a science fiction writer! And Okorafor is the same. It's all there. God I wish she would write 100 books. I have to go finish this one now. SO GOOD. So good.
November 15, 2019
OMFG This was so damn good.
June 28, 2022
Phénix est un organisme accéléré : à deux ans, elle a déjà l’apparence d’une femme d’une quarantaine d’années. Ses journées dans la Tour 7 se suivent et se ressemblent jusqu’au moment où elle apprend la mort de l’homme qu’elle aime. Elle va alors commencer à s’interroger sur ce qui se passe vraiment au sein de sa Tour. Va s’en suivre une quête d’identité, de vérité et de vengeance…
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Ça faisait déjà un petit moment que je voulais découvrir Nnedi Okorafor avec Qui a peur de la mort qui traîne dans ma PAL depuis plus d’un an, mais je savais que c’était une lecture compliquée et j’attendais donc le bon moment. Et puis finalement, ce prequel (qui peut se lire indépendamment) est arrivé et je me suis dit que j’allais commencer par celui-ci !
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Je n’ai vraiment eu aucun mal à rentrer dans cette histoire qui m’a happé dès le premier chapitre. On y rencontre notamment Phénix qui, au début de cette histoire, est d’une naïveté déconcertante. Elle subit des abus quotidiens tout en pensant que c’est normal puisqu’elle n’a jamais rien connu d’autre. Heureusement (pour nous mais peut-être pas pour elle), elle va très vite être amenée à remettre en question son quotidien, et le personnage va alors beaucoup gagner en profondeur.
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D’ailleurs, les personnages sont clairement un des gros points forts de ce roman puisqu’ils sont vraiment tout en nuances. On n’a aucun mal à s’attacher aux différents protagonistes (dont j’ai adoré découvrir le passé petit à petit), mais à aucun moment ils ne nous sont présentés comme des héros (peut-être un peu Sept dans une certaine mesure mais il reste un personnage secondaire). Non, chacun des personnages a été profondément marqué par son passé et est devenu d’autant plus complexe à la suite de ça.
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J’ai aussi beaucoup aimé la façon dont l’autrice a conçu l’antagoniste de l’histoire puisqu’il ne s’agit pas d’un personnage unique sur lequel on peut déverser toute notre haine. Il y a bien un personnage qui ressort côté antagoniste mais on comprend assez vite qu’il s’agit plus d’un pantin que d’une tête pensante. Et c’est ça que j’ai trouvé fort : en faisant des méchants de l’histoire un groupe sans visage, sans identité personnelle, l’autrice renforce cette impression de lutter contre quelque chose qu’on ne pourra jamais atteindre, rendant le danger d’autant plus pernicieux et effrayant.
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Parlons maintenant un peu des thématiques du roman. Je connaissais un peu les thèmes abordés dans Qui a peur de la mort, et d’une façon générale les th��mes que l’autrice aime aborder. Je n’étais donc pas forcément très confiant avant de me lancer dans ce roman que je pensais trouver plombant pour le moral. Et bien j’ai été très surpris !
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Entendons-nous, il ne s’agit absolument pas d’une jolie histoire où tout le monde est heureux et où tout finit bien. Les thématiques sont dures (racisme, expérimentation scientifique, torture et autres abus en tout genre), mais je trouve que l’autrice parvient à adoucir tout ça en nous distillant de jolies touches d’espoir tout au long du roman. Evidemment, ces moments de bienveillance et d’innocence servent à renforcer le contraste avec tout ce qui ne va pas dans ce monde, mais ça permet aussi vraiment de ne pas être complètement désespéré par cette lecture.
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Certains aspects de l’histoire ne sont pas forcément très détaillés, comme l’existence d’organismes extra-terrestres ou la façon dont Phénix apprend à se déplacer à un certain moment de l��histoire, mais je n’ai pas trouvé ça gênant au final. On se rend vite compte que bien que difficiles à comprendre, ces éléments sont bien moins incompréhensibles que les choses aberrantes et effroyables qui peuvent passer dans la tête de certaines personnes.
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Une chose est sûre, il s’agit là d’une lecture qui ne peut pas laisser indifférent, et j’ai hâte de continuer à découvrir les romans de l’autrice.
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Ça faisait déjà un petit moment que je voulais découvrir Nnedi Okorafor avec Qui a peur de la mort qui traîne dans ma PAL depuis plus d’un an, mais je savais que c’était une lecture compliquée et j’attendais donc le bon moment. Et puis finalement, ce prequel (qui peut se lire indépendamment) est arrivé et je me suis dit que j’allais commencer par celui-ci !
⠀
Je n’ai vraiment eu aucun mal à rentrer dans cette histoire qui m’a happé dès le premier chapitre. On y rencontre notamment Phénix qui, au début de cette histoire, est d’une naïveté déconcertante. Elle subit des abus quotidiens tout en pensant que c’est normal puisqu’elle n’a jamais rien connu d’autre. Heureusement (pour nous mais peut-être pas pour elle), elle va très vite être amenée à remettre en question son quotidien, et le personnage va alors beaucoup gagner en profondeur.
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D’ailleurs, les personnages sont clairement un des gros points forts de ce roman puisqu’ils sont vraiment tout en nuances. On n’a aucun mal à s’attacher aux différents protagonistes (dont j’ai adoré découvrir le passé petit à petit), mais à aucun moment ils ne nous sont présentés comme des héros (peut-être un peu Sept dans une certaine mesure mais il reste un personnage secondaire). Non, chacun des personnages a été profondément marqué par son passé et est devenu d’autant plus complexe à la suite de ça.
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J’ai aussi beaucoup aimé la façon dont l’autrice a conçu l’antagoniste de l’histoire puisqu’il ne s’agit pas d’un personnage unique sur lequel on peut déverser toute notre haine. Il y a bien un personnage qui ressort côté antagoniste mais on comprend assez vite qu’il s’agit plus d’un pantin que d’une tête pensante. Et c’est ça que j’ai trouvé fort : en faisant des méchants de l’histoire un groupe sans visage, sans identité personnelle, l’autrice renforce cette impression de lutter contre quelque chose qu’on ne pourra jamais atteindre, rendant le danger d’autant plus pernicieux et effrayant.
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Parlons maintenant un peu des thématiques du roman. Je connaissais un peu les thèmes abordés dans Qui a peur de la mort, et d’une façon générale les th��mes que l’autrice aime aborder. Je n’étais donc pas forcément très confiant avant de me lancer dans ce roman que je pensais trouver plombant pour le moral. Et bien j’ai été très surpris !
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Entendons-nous, il ne s’agit absolument pas d’une jolie histoire où tout le monde est heureux et où tout finit bien. Les thématiques sont dures (racisme, expérimentation scientifique, torture et autres abus en tout genre), mais je trouve que l’autrice parvient à adoucir tout ça en nous distillant de jolies touches d’espoir tout au long du roman. Evidemment, ces moments de bienveillance et d’innocence servent à renforcer le contraste avec tout ce qui ne va pas dans ce monde, mais ça permet aussi vraiment de ne pas être complètement désespéré par cette lecture.
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Certains aspects de l’histoire ne sont pas forcément très détaillés, comme l’existence d’organismes extra-terrestres ou la façon dont Phénix apprend à se déplacer à un certain moment de l��histoire, mais je n’ai pas trouvé ça gênant au final. On se rend vite compte que bien que difficiles à comprendre, ces éléments sont bien moins incompréhensibles que les choses aberrantes et effroyables qui peuvent passer dans la tête de certaines personnes.
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Une chose est sûre, il s’agit là d’une lecture qui ne peut pas laisser indifférent, et j’ai hâte de continuer à découvrir les romans de l’autrice.
May 4, 2016
I'm surprised by this rating myself. I loved Who Fear Death, so I was ready to give The Book of Phonix its five little stars. But boy was I wrong. The Book of Phonix is not a bad book. It has quite a high rating, so it's not as if I wouldn't recommend it. In this case, I feel like it's more of a it's me not you sort of thing.
Similarly to Who Fear Death, Okorafor wanted to tackle lots of heavy topics through her writing. However, for me it didn't work, at all. It feel to me like Okorafor had lots of thing to say about racism and prejudice and she incorporated it within her story. But it was heavy handed and lacked layers. It seemed as if I was ready an article about racism or seeing a documentary about it rather than reading a book that had been able to weave the many aspects and forms of racism within its story.
I Wonder if I would have felt differently if I hadn't been black and African. Okorafor does make a lot of good points and observations. Things that I have observed in my own life, but it felt so in your face. I don't know if people are able to get what I mean. I feel like I barely make sense, lol.
Like for example, one of the villain called Bumi is a Nigerian woman who works for the company experimenting on Phoenix because she wants to receive her American citizenship. Through her Okorafor wanted to portray the African men who is so eager to please the white men that he's willing to do absolutly anything even terrorise his own people. I see where she was going with this, but haaa.... It was so simplistic, too simplistic.
Or at another point of the story, the organization responsible for the experiment made on Phonix give her any book or data she asks for, even the one containing classified information because they think she's too dump to understand the document given to her. Again, this was a nod to the mind of slavers and colonizers centuries ago. Except that it wasn't.
I studied British and French colonization in Africa very carefully as I was planning to do my master dissertation and perhaps even a Phd on this topic. And one thing I can say is that colonizers used all kind of tactics in order to subdue and control the people they oppressed. They did not believe that black were their equal, but they also recognized that if given too many Tools they would raise against their master. Slavery and colonization were planned in a way that black people would always be antagonized.
For example, it is during the time that Britain engaged in the slave trade that many scientific theories about the superiority of the White men were developped and acknowledged as fact. It is also during that time, that many books depicting black people as animals, uneducated or even monsters were being published. You see where I'm going?
Moreover, during the centuries of slavery that black people suffered and then the colonization in Africa, white men were careful not to give any education to black people or at least the bare minimum.
A lot of the story is based in Africa and resolve about the continent. However, once again it didn't work for me. I feel bad saying this, but it felt caricatural.
I believe that another reason why I couldn't connect to the story is because of Phonix's voice. She's actually two-year-old but looks 40 and has the intelligence of a grown adult. However, she's as naive as a child.
All in all this book was fairly disappointing. At some point I started to skim pages. There was too much going on for such a tiny book. I did enjoy the ending though.
Similarly to Who Fear Death, Okorafor wanted to tackle lots of heavy topics through her writing. However, for me it didn't work, at all. It feel to me like Okorafor had lots of thing to say about racism and prejudice and she incorporated it within her story. But it was heavy handed and lacked layers. It seemed as if I was ready an article about racism or seeing a documentary about it rather than reading a book that had been able to weave the many aspects and forms of racism within its story.
I Wonder if I would have felt differently if I hadn't been black and African. Okorafor does make a lot of good points and observations. Things that I have observed in my own life, but it felt so in your face. I don't know if people are able to get what I mean. I feel like I barely make sense, lol.
Like for example, one of the villain called Bumi is a Nigerian woman who works for the company experimenting on Phoenix because she wants to receive her American citizenship. Through her Okorafor wanted to portray the African men who is so eager to please the white men that he's willing to do absolutly anything even terrorise his own people. I see where she was going with this, but haaa.... It was so simplistic, too simplistic.
Or at another point of the story, the organization responsible for the experiment made on Phonix give her any book or data she asks for, even the one containing classified information because they think she's too dump to understand the document given to her. Again, this was a nod to the mind of slavers and colonizers centuries ago. Except that it wasn't.
I studied British and French colonization in Africa very carefully as I was planning to do my master dissertation and perhaps even a Phd on this topic. And one thing I can say is that colonizers used all kind of tactics in order to subdue and control the people they oppressed. They did not believe that black were their equal, but they also recognized that if given too many Tools they would raise against their master. Slavery and colonization were planned in a way that black people would always be antagonized.
For example, it is during the time that Britain engaged in the slave trade that many scientific theories about the superiority of the White men were developped and acknowledged as fact. It is also during that time, that many books depicting black people as animals, uneducated or even monsters were being published. You see where I'm going?
Moreover, during the centuries of slavery that black people suffered and then the colonization in Africa, white men were careful not to give any education to black people or at least the bare minimum.
A lot of the story is based in Africa and resolve about the continent. However, once again it didn't work for me. I feel bad saying this, but it felt caricatural.
I believe that another reason why I couldn't connect to the story is because of Phonix's voice. She's actually two-year-old but looks 40 and has the intelligence of a grown adult. However, she's as naive as a child.
All in all this book was fairly disappointing. At some point I started to skim pages. There was too much going on for such a tiny book. I did enjoy the ending though.
July 11, 2016
This is technically a prequel to a book I haven’t yet read, Who Fears Death, but it stands alone just fine. I actually think this might be the first book of Okorafor’s I’ve enjoyed this much — it shares themes with Lagoon and with what I know of Who Fears Death, shares the same anger at and examination of colonialism, racial issues, etc, but somehow Phoenix came alive for me more than any of the characters of Lagoon or Binti.
There were some aspects of this that I didn’t quite get — it just seemed so crammed full of stuff: the alien seed, the mutants, the modifications that could be done to normal humans, the political situation, the frame story… But I agree with another review I read earlier that said that this is about myth-making: that’s really the thing to remember with this one, the core of the story. Phoenix mythologises herself, and makes new mythology around her. Everything she does feels like part of a myth, so you don’t really have to question the archetypal Big Brother Government, the mad scientists, etc.
It’s a pretty easy/fast read, though not always emotionally easy; the scene with Phoenix’s mother is really effective, for example.
I think it’s not going to stick with me that much, but it was enjoyable.
Originally posted here.
There were some aspects of this that I didn’t quite get — it just seemed so crammed full of stuff: the alien seed, the mutants, the modifications that could be done to normal humans, the political situation, the frame story… But I agree with another review I read earlier that said that this is about myth-making: that’s really the thing to remember with this one, the core of the story. Phoenix mythologises herself, and makes new mythology around her. Everything she does feels like part of a myth, so you don’t really have to question the archetypal Big Brother Government, the mad scientists, etc.
It’s a pretty easy/fast read, though not always emotionally easy; the scene with Phoenix’s mother is really effective, for example.
I think it’s not going to stick with me that much, but it was enjoyable.
Originally posted here.
June 12, 2015
About halfway through, I thought that Okorafor understood mythology and mythmaking as well as anyone writing now. Then I got to the final two chapters, which made it clear that Okorafor's understanding of myth is light years beyond anyone else. Myth and sacred text are never just about myth. They're inevitably racial narratives, and have consequences far beyond anything the disembodied and forgotten authors could have intended. The Book of Phoenix is not about the life and deaths of Phoenix, even though that story occupies probably 90% of the pages. It's about the writing of The Great Book, the sacred text that drives the racially divided and dystopian culture of Who Fears Death.
I could tell you about the last two chapters. Given the book's framing structure, in which the final two chapters really aren't a part of the story, I wouldn't even consider that a spoiler. But I won't; the final chapters may be outside Phoenix's story, but they're the key to The Book of Phoenix. I, however, will end with a teaser. Given that storytellers are inevitably broken, biased, limited, and human, the important question isn't who wrote the story. It's "Who is writing you?"
I could tell you about the last two chapters. Given the book's framing structure, in which the final two chapters really aren't a part of the story, I wouldn't even consider that a spoiler. But I won't; the final chapters may be outside Phoenix's story, but they're the key to The Book of Phoenix. I, however, will end with a teaser. Given that storytellers are inevitably broken, biased, limited, and human, the important question isn't who wrote the story. It's "Who is writing you?"
August 16, 2015
AYYYYYYYYYYY I WAITED SO LONG AND IT WAS SO GOOD
this book is what the hunger games and allegiant could have been. it's the most diverse dystopian novel i've ever read by far.
i had no idea you could even fit this much action and depth into 240 pages, tbh. like... whoa.
SO MUCH happened but it all worked, somehow. also can i mention how much i LOVE ?
yeah, so, i will stan phoenix okore for all time. just sayin'.
this book is what the hunger games and allegiant could have been. it's the most diverse dystopian novel i've ever read by far.
i had no idea you could even fit this much action and depth into 240 pages, tbh. like... whoa.
SO MUCH happened but it all worked, somehow. also can i mention how much i LOVE ?
yeah, so, i will stan phoenix okore for all time. just sayin'.
June 8, 2022
Claro que esta novela no es que sea sobre superheroínas, sino que es una excusa para hacer crítica social, ecologista y hablar contra el racismo, reivindicando la cultura africana.
Reseña completa: https://libros-prohibidos.com/el-libr...
Reseña completa: https://libros-prohibidos.com/el-libr...
April 27, 2023
Jetzt bin ich gespannt auf "Who Fears Death"!
October 11, 2019
4.4| Das dritte, auf deutsch erschienene Buch der afro-amerikanischen SF-Autorin, Nnedi Okorafor ist die Vorgeschichte ihres Erfolgsroman
(Wer fürchtet den Tod?). Es handelt von den Protagonisten genetischer Experimente, die verborgen vor der Öffentlichkeit in einem Amerika, das meines Erachtens an das Trump-Amerika erinnert, stattfinden.
Die Hauptprotagonistin mit dem Namen Phönix besitzt Flügel und kann Dinge mit ihrer bloßen Berührung in Flammen aufgehen lassen. Phönix lebt seit zwei Jahren im 28. Stockwerk von Turm 7, einem Ort an welchem viele genetisch veränderte Kreaturen wie sie selbst leben.
Denn obwohl Phönix den Verstand und Körper einer Erwachsenen besitzt, existiert sie erst seit diesen zwei Jahren auf Erden. Und entschließt sich dazu, ihr bekanntes Terrain zu verlassen, um die Welt um sie herum zu entdecken. Sie will nicht mehr ständig als Forschungsobjekt beobachtet und analysiert werden, sondern frei sein...
Das Thema der Autorin zieht sich durch ihr gesamtes Werk durch und wird in diesem Buch besonders deutlich. Sie zeigt in einer wütenden Weise die andauernden Grausamkeiten, die der Westen Afrika antut. Auch hier passt der Einwurf von Donald Trump in dieses Bild ("Es ist ein Drecksnest"), die Autorin kontert diese Vorwürfe mit diesem Roman auf ihrer Weise, der aber gleichzeitig ein großartiger Superheldenroman geworden ist, der Film Black Panther und seine Reaktionen in Afrika lassen grüßen...
In dieser Story läßt die Autorin kein gutes Haar an den Weißen, alle Weißen in diesem Buch sind Verbrecher oder ignorieren einfach die Tatsachen der Unterdrückung der nicht-weißen Rassen.
Man könnte fast an Rassismus denken, auf jeden Fall wandelt die Autorin auf einem schmalen Grat, allerdings kritisiert sie auch in diesem Buch die politischen Extreme in Afrika, speziell in Nigeria, besonders der Satz "Wir waren so kolonisiert, dass wir unsere eigenen Ketten erschufen" zeigt den wütenden Gestus des Romans.
Mir hat das Buch gefallen, besonders als Vorgeschichte zu Wer fürchtet den Tod? ist der Roman glaubhaft und lesenswert...
(Wer fürchtet den Tod?). Es handelt von den Protagonisten genetischer Experimente, die verborgen vor der Öffentlichkeit in einem Amerika, das meines Erachtens an das Trump-Amerika erinnert, stattfinden.Die Hauptprotagonistin mit dem Namen Phönix besitzt Flügel und kann Dinge mit ihrer bloßen Berührung in Flammen aufgehen lassen. Phönix lebt seit zwei Jahren im 28. Stockwerk von Turm 7, einem Ort an welchem viele genetisch veränderte Kreaturen wie sie selbst leben.
Denn obwohl Phönix den Verstand und Körper einer Erwachsenen besitzt, existiert sie erst seit diesen zwei Jahren auf Erden. Und entschließt sich dazu, ihr bekanntes Terrain zu verlassen, um die Welt um sie herum zu entdecken. Sie will nicht mehr ständig als Forschungsobjekt beobachtet und analysiert werden, sondern frei sein...
Das Thema der Autorin zieht sich durch ihr gesamtes Werk durch und wird in diesem Buch besonders deutlich. Sie zeigt in einer wütenden Weise die andauernden Grausamkeiten, die der Westen Afrika antut. Auch hier passt der Einwurf von Donald Trump in dieses Bild ("Es ist ein Drecksnest"), die Autorin kontert diese Vorwürfe mit diesem Roman auf ihrer Weise, der aber gleichzeitig ein großartiger Superheldenroman geworden ist, der Film Black Panther und seine Reaktionen in Afrika lassen grüßen...
In dieser Story läßt die Autorin kein gutes Haar an den Weißen, alle Weißen in diesem Buch sind Verbrecher oder ignorieren einfach die Tatsachen der Unterdrückung der nicht-weißen Rassen.
Man könnte fast an Rassismus denken, auf jeden Fall wandelt die Autorin auf einem schmalen Grat, allerdings kritisiert sie auch in diesem Buch die politischen Extreme in Afrika, speziell in Nigeria, besonders der Satz "Wir waren so kolonisiert, dass wir unsere eigenen Ketten erschufen" zeigt den wütenden Gestus des Romans.
Mir hat das Buch gefallen, besonders als Vorgeschichte zu Wer fürchtet den Tod? ist der Roman glaubhaft und lesenswert...
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