Binti (Binti, 1)
Nnedi Okorafor's Binti is the winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Book 1: Binti
Book 2: Binti: Home
Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade PRAISE FOR BINTI "Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" -- Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper
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Community Reviews
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor is an Afro-Futurism book powered by an unfettered imagination. Okorafor exploits the young and naive protagonist first person point of view to visualize a fantasy world akin to Star Wars. Our author is clearly a dreamer and her world building reflects that.
That said, trying to maintain interest in Binti’s storyline was not without struggle. What was a swift and promising start loses steam and becomes too predictable near the end. There was a lot of opportunity for ever more expansive world building that never materializes. I wonder if the first person perspective hindered this story more than it helped.
This was also a time when the brevity of the book was a problem. Often a novella reads swiftly but is packed with meaning between each line. There was none of that density of meaning in this one. I suppose Okorafor’s goal is to establish a violent and perplexing space journey that sprawls over multiple books in the series. I can’t find a reason to pick up the others in the series though.
Stunning book
Truly fresh sci-fi is a rare thing & a joy to find, this book deserves all the accolades. I look forward to reading more.
Truly fresh sci-fi is a rare thing & a joy to find, this book deserves all the accolades. I look forward to reading more.
Wonderful sci fi story. Okorafor has created a world that is incredibly novel to me, but has imbued it with characters so believable and relatable that I feel like I've made new friends. In this story, Binti is a young woman going off to University - on another planet. Her math skills are so interwoven into her persona that they are like breathing. Wonderfully imagined, well crafted. I look forward to reading the rest.
Content warning for sci-fi violence, racism, mass murder, genocide, war crimes, and related topics. I really liked this novella, but as usual, I wished it was longer. I think the reconciliation was rushed and I had a hard time believing that the college was really okay with what happened on the ship. I liked Binti and thought she was an engaging narrator, even if it felt a little YA at times. The worldbuilding is incredible, and I'm seriously considering reading the rest of the series.
Here are the things I liked: the writing, the main character, the world-building, the main character's culture, and her mathematical skills, interests, and basically magic. What I didn't like: the plot and the simplistic resolution thereof. Given the level of violence in the story, the resolution is just impossible for me to move past.
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