Binti: Home
The Binti trilogy, Book 2
Nnedi Okorafor
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A year ago, Binti knew who she was: a human girl, daughter of Earth's isolated Himba tribe of Africa, master harmonizer capable of transforming mathematical equations into energy, future student at the interplanetary Oomza University. Now, with DNA from the Meduse in her blood, hair transformed to luminous tentacles like those on the jellyfishlike aliens, she finds not just her body but her mind unfamiliar, plagued by fits of anger. Worse, these fits are damaging her efforts to research her edam, the piece of alien technology she discovered as a girl in the desert outside her village. She needs to return home, to go on pilgrimage with other Himba girls, reconnecting with the holy Seven and rediscovering her roots, before she becomes something she no longer recognizes and destroys everything she sacrificed so much to gain. When her only friend, the Meduse Okwu, travels with her, homecoming may not only open old wounds with Binti's family, but restart a centuries-old war.
REVIEW: Like the first installment in this African-themed trilogy, Binti: Home reads quickly. Unlike the first, it does not stand alone. Binti thought she had made peace with her decision to defy Himba traditions and pursue an offworld education, finding a balance between her old ways and new, but she was wrong. In addition to post-traumatic stress from the slaughter wrought by the Meduse invasion on her outbound journey, she must process how she has changed with Meduse alterations - at the time, the only way to save her own life and possibly prevent further massacre at the university - and the pain she caused her loved ones by rejecting her traditional role in family and community. Meanwhile, the mysteries of her edam, an alien device of as-yet-unknown purpose which seems strangely responsive to her harmonizing skills, continue to taunt her; her inability to crack the puzzle it presents only heightens her frustrations, making it that much harder for her to deal with the problems accumulating at her doorstep. It doesn't help that her companion Okwu - who, in many ways, is too alien to contribute much to Binti's story, despite nominally being her friend - nearly triggers a shooting war just by setting foot (or tentacle) on Earth; the Khoush, dominant race on the planet now, have a long-standing mutual aggression with the Meduse, and the fact that Okwu technically comes in peace means little to those with itchy trigger fingers and long memories of past Meduse slaughters. There are no simple answers, no one moment that fixes everything; Binti must come to grips with her own personal, cultural, and species flaws and prejudices if she's to have any hope of resolution, a journey that blends metaphysics with mathematics and centuries-old tribal culture with far-future tech. The tale takes some time to get moving, sometimes feeling disconnected (especially as I'm coming at the tale as an American; there's an odd flow and rhythm to Okorafor's style that takes some parsing), but ultimately comes together... just before a cliffhanger which was so sudden it came close to shaving a half-star off the rating. Fortunately, I have Book 3 standing by.
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