The Book Depository The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor

Author: RDD

Rating: 5

Review: Nnedi Okorafor's "The Book of Phoenix" takes place in the not-too-distant future where government-backed multinational corporations exploit people from developing nations in Africa in order to improve the lives of the wealthy. Outside of a framing device set centuries in the future, Okorafor tells her story from the perspective of Phoenix Okore, a genetically-enhanced individual called a speciMEN. These individuals, created by LifeGen Technologies (the speciMEN nicknamed the company the Big Eye due to the way it observes them), exist to test ideas that may benefit the world's wealthiest individuals. This theme of class-based exploitation runs throughout the novel, with many of the Big Eye workers taking positions in order to reduce the time on their academic indenture, a student loan program taken to the extreme. As for the speciMEN themselves, Okorafor explains how most of them are from Africa or members of the African diaspora. Much as companies exploit developing nations while Euro-Americans turn a blind eye so long as the exploited are from impoverished countries in our own time, the Big Eye can get away with it by targeting those least likely to attract much international condemnation from powerful countries. Okorafor writes, "They saw me as they saw the Africans made slaves during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade hundreds of years ago" (pg. 136). She also draws upon historic examples of the scientific exploitation of those of African descent, specifically Henrietta Lacks, whose HeLa cells continue to serve as tools in medical experimentation and raise questions about privacy rights and ethics (pgs. 148, 186). She also comments upon the effects of industrialization and ecological change upon relatively isolated groups like the Jarawa (pg. 188), who will suffer most from climate change while the West marginalizes their voices so that they cannot advocate on behalf of their needs. In these commentaries, Okorafor's work belongs alongside other works of environmental science fiction, such as Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy. In some of the more introspective prose, it is easy to see Phoenix as an avatar for Okorafor, especially when she muses, "I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas" (pg. 135). Further, her condemnation of the exploitation of the natural world evokes a theme present in much of this type of speculative science-fiction, "Human beings make terrible gods" (pg. 162). Okorafor also makes some fun references amid her social commentary. For example, the character Mmuo had a friend at university named Success T (pg. 119). This character also appears in Okorafor's Nigerian noir short story "Showlogo." In addition to this, among the records Phoenix finds in the Library of Congress are references to "Project X" and "Experiment 626" (pg. 148), the former likely alluding to the 1987 film about government experiments and the latter to Disney's "Lilo and Stitch". I did not know at the time of reading that this book is a prequel to Okorafor's 2010 novel, "Who Fears Death", but the work is able to stand on its own and, with the exception of a brief reference at the end to the protagonist of the earlier novel, it requires no foreknowledge of that work.

Author: WriterReader876

Rating: 1

Review: Interesting to see the world from a different cultural aspect but that is all that's going for this book. Repetitious, messy and self-absorbed first person narration that was so tedious I couldn't finish it. It was really amateurish for a book produced with all the backing of major publishing. The scifi aspect is sound, it's a dystopian world that is interesting and colourful, but this author meanders and pads the book with repetition and forgotten bits of plot, then presumably she's had enough so blows her world up. The point appeared to be - well, I'm not sure, apart from that when people do evil things to you or others then blowing them up is the only solution. yes, well... I'm sure this author, who is allegedly a university lecturer (shudder to think) felt she was making a philosophical point about the effects of persecution and the madness of technological advances, but poor writing undermines all that. Quite disturbing that there are no sympathetic white people in it other than the faceless people who persecute and pursue, all the African and Arabic characters are lovely and wronged, and in the end the message seems to be white man bad, black people good. Difficult to keep interested with such a stilted, stereotyped viewpoint. You see, you have to give people a character to root for (the main protagonist whines far too much for that), but if you alienate a large sector of your readership, it's a fatal mistake. It could have been a good book with more perspective provided by a firm handed editorial team but that didn't happen.