Who Fears Death — Nnedi Okorafor

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Cover of AWho Fears Death


Who Fears Death
Nnedi Okorafor
386 pages
published in 2010

As I was reading Who Fears Death, about a third to halfway through it, a simple question sprung to mind: why did I think this was set in Africa? There had been no recognisable place names, no mention of Africa, no hint of what the Seven Rivers Kingdom corresponded to in the real world until almost at the end of the book, when it’s revealed to once have been part of the Kingdom of Sudan (which as far as I can determine, has never existed, at least not under that name). Yet from the start I had no doubt this was set in some part of Africa, but why? Was it just because Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian writer? Or the cover, which does look very “African”? Ironically, for once in a field where protagonists are often whitewashed on the cover, here the opposite may have happened; the heroine, Onyesonwu, is described as being “sand dune coloured” in the book, paler than most people.

Because of this, by just looking at her, people know she’s the child of rape, an Ewu, born of an Okeke mother raped by a Nuru man, as part of a strategic campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Nuru of the Okeke, traditionally their slaves. Any child born of rape is not just a permanent reminder of Nuru superiority, it also undermines the Okeke’ future directly, as they aren’t Okeke and nor would their children. Onyesonwu therefore, like all Ewu, is outcast, barely tolerated in Okeke society and that only because of her father, not the man who raped her mother, but the man she chose for her when she and her mother came out of the desert they’d been living in. And it is when her father dies when she’s sixteen, that everything changes for Onyesonwu, when it becomes public that part of the unwanted heritage she has gotten from her mother’s rapist is the ability to practise magic. Now she has to find somebody to teach her how to control her powers and how to use them to protect herself.

That’s all in the first two short chapters, setting up the rest of the story. At the end of the first chapter it’s established that it’s being told by Onyesonwu to an unknown listener, four years after the death of her father, while she’s waiting for her own death. Throughout the rest of the story she occassionally flashes forward to this moment, as we learn more about why she ended up there. At first the story is told mostly in flashback however as Onyesonwu talks about her growning up and trying to fit in with a society in which she’s an outcast. Her innate sorcerous abilities, in a society where of course sorcery is the domain of men, doesn’t help. Large parts of her story revolve around her struggle to control and learn to use her powers, in the face of the (well intentioned) refusal of those who could help her.

The town Onyesonwu lives in is far removed from the realities of the slow burning civil war that her mother fled, but as the novel progresses it comes closer. It also becomes that the driving force behind the genocide of the Okeke is her own father. And with Onyesonwu’s becoming a woman and growning mastery of her sorcery, she comes to his attention, seemingly setting things up for a familiar quest story, in which Onyesonwu has to defeat her father and overcome the racial and tribal perjudices of both her peoples.

Though this is what more or less happens, it doesn’t quite fit the mold though. Onyesonwu often is more pawn than hero and never escapes the fate that she sees in her initiation rite when the local sorceror master finally takes her as his pupil. At which point it also becomes clear to the reader, if it hadn’t already, that she’s narrating the story shortly before she will be killed by stoning. She’s at peace with this, as the same vision also revealed that her death would change everything for the Nuru, Okeke and Ewu.

But what really sets Onyesonwu apart from a Luke Skywalker say, is that once in full possession of her powers, she’s as destructive and vindictive as her father. When her friend is killed in one town, she blinds the inhabitants. Worse she inflicts on the Nuru capital, through killing every Nuru male in it, whil impregnating every Nuru female, avenging what was done to her mother a million fold.

This isn’t really the sort of behaviour we expect from our science fiction or fantasy heros. Sure, genocide is always the first option space opera protagonists reach for when things get difficult, but it’s supposed to be done rationally, not so emotionally as this. It also makes a mockery of the elegant structure of the prophecy she’s supposedly enacting, as her actions have already changed the world, her death just a coda.

And all through this I kept wondering why it felt so African to me when it was only on the very last page it was revealed it was indeed set in Sudan. Granted, the genocide and civil war reminded me of the South Sudan and Ruanda, but it could’ve just as well been Bosnia twenty years ago. Perhaps it was that curious mixture of what seemed like superstition mixed with actual sorcery embedded in a society that seemed organised on the village level, where high technology like computer tablets do exist, but seem external to village life. Maybe Who Fears Death is just deliberately designed to feed on our prejudices and stereotypes of “Africa”.

This wasn’t an easy novel to read, much more so than Lagoon was. I”m not sure it entirely succeeded in what it set out to to, or even what that was. If you’re new to Okorafor’s writing, perhaps Lagoon would be a better start.

How diverse are my book shelves?

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Not very it turns out. Below are the fifty science fiction and fantasy writers I’ve bought the most books of, according to Librarything. Thirtyeight male, twelve female writers, one writer of colour. Part of that discrepancy is of course the inertia of any collection: it takes time and effort to get new writers into the top fifty. But I think part of it is due to the fact that it has been easier for white, male writers to keep their career going than it has been for women/writers of colour. It hasn’t been that long since there were only two first grade Black writers in science fiction: Butler and Delany. I like to think that if I look at this list again in one or two years time, it will be more diverse.

  1. Terry Pratchett (55)
  2. Poul Anderson (45)
  3. Robert A. Heinlein (37)
  4. C. J. Cherryh (34)
  5. Andre Norton (34)
  6. Michael Moorcock (33)
  7. Jack Vance (33)
  8. Robert Silverberg (30)
  9. Frederik Pohl (24)
  10. Philip K. Dick (23)
  11. Charlie Stross (23)
  12. Glen Cook (21)
  13. Roger Zelazny (20)
  14. Steven Brust (19)
  15. Samuel R. Delany (19)
  16. Isaac Asimov (18)
  17. Lois McMaster Bujold (18)
  18. Paul J. McAuley (17)
  19. Tanya Huff (16)
  20. Keith Laumer (16)
  21. Philip Jose Farmer (15)
  22. Ursula K. Le Guin (15)
  23. Larry Niven (15)
  24. Walter Jon Williams (15)
  25. Iain M. Banks (14)
  26. John Barnes (14)
  27. Elizabeth Bear (14)
  28. Ken MacLeod (14)
  29. Brian W. Aldiss (13)
  30. Avram Davidson (13)
  31. Diane Duane (13)
  32. Christopher Priest (13)
  33. Neal Asher (12)
  34. Leigh Brackett (12)
  35. Mary Gentle (12)
  36. Harry Harrison (12)
  37. E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith (12)
  38. Bruce Sterling (12)
  39. Jo Walton (12)
  40. David Weber (12)
  41. James Blish (11)
  42. Lloyd Biggle Jr. (10)
  43. Steven Erikson (10)
  44. M. John Harrison (10)
  45. Gwyneth Jones (10)
  46. Fritz Leiber (10)
  47. China Mieville (10)
  48. Alastair Reynolds (10)
  49. Kate Wilhelm (10)
  50. John Wyndham (10)

The Nemesis from Terra — Leigh Brackett

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Cover of The Nemesis from Terra


The Nemesis from Terra
Leigh Brackett
150 pages
published in 1961

One of the disadvantages of the exploration of the Solar System that got started up in the middle of the 1960s is that it destroyed the cozy picture science fiction had build up over the decades. Gone were the humid jungles of pulp Venus, the night and day sides of Mercury and of course most famously, the Martian channels and any hope that it may yet be a habitable planet. Though I was born well after the pulp sf ideas about the Solar System had been shown to be false, I still like reading about it, as long as it’s not some hideously reactionary re-imagination of it but the real deal. Leigh Brackett of course always satisfies and it’s no different here.

Rick Urquhart is space scum, kicked off his last ship’s crew for slugging the first mate and currently running away from the press gangs sweeping through the ancient Martian city of Ruh, looking for fresh bodies to use in the mines of the Terran Exploitations Company. When he stumbles into one Martian hidey hole, the old crone living in it, suggests she tells his future, to kill the time, hoping no more than to hypnotise Rick and shove him outside. Much to her surprise however she finds out his shadow will hang over Mars unless she kills him now. Rick struggles and kills her, then flees only to run into another press gang. For somebody prophesied to be the new ruler of Mars, he has remarkable little luck…

As Rick is stewing in the mines, he keeps looking out for chances to escape to fullfill his destiny to rule Mars, which is how he interprets the crone’s prediction. He’s not the only one: his killing of her is the catalyst for a Martian uprising. For the first time, the city states stand as one in a conspiracy to throw the Terran Exploitations Company off Mars, preferably with all other humans. And they’re not the only ones after the TEC: there’s also the Union Party, full of Terran do gooders wanting to raise the Martian living standard and make it an independent planet. One of them, Mayo McCall, has infiltrated the TEC and is present when Rick tries to escape.

Her cover is blown in the attempt and she and Rick flee into the mine tunnels, in the most harrowing part of the novel. Pursued by the company’s watch dogs they move deeper and deeper into the mine, coming out in the tunnels dug by one of Mars’ natural tunnellers, a giant worm like creature, whose carcass they have to move through to get to the surface. More dead than alive they reach another of Mars many half ruined cities, where Rick and Mayo are looked after by Kyra, one of the last surviving members of an ancient Martian race. These tend to crop up a lot in Brackett’s work.

Meanwhile, TEC’s second in command, Jaffa Storm, has taken over the company and crushed the first Martian rebellion, but not before Rick had been taken prisoner by them and tortured on behalf of the son of the woman he’d killed. With the leaders of the rebellion now dead and Rick’s destiny still playing in the back of his head, he persuades Mayo and Kyra to help him organise a new one, using Mayo’s contacts in the Union Party, his own among the spacer community as well as the indigenous Martians, already organised. Together they beat TEC, but Storm escapes while Rick is betrayed. It all comes to a climax in the abandoned city of yet another Martian race as Rick has to chose between power and love…

The Nemesis from Earth started out as “Shadow over Mars”, originally printed in the Fall 1944 Startling Stories. With such a pulp background it’s no surprise it packs a lot of action in its 150 pages, with the characters being a bit twodimensional. What is surprising though is the relative sophistication of the politics. This is no simplistic story of heroic natives rising up against an exploitative company; the Martians have their faults, TEC itself has some good points and the Union Party is willing to use realpolitik to achieve its goals. It’s all rooted in a mid twentieth century understanding of colonial politics; it could’ve been set in an African or Central American country except, you know, for the mind powers and such.

In the end The Nemesis from Terra is a minor Brackett story, not as refined or interesting as her later Mars stories. But it’s a quick read and the action is fat enough to keep your attention.

Tracking with closeups (January 15th)

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The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood

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Cover of The Handmaid's Tale


The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
308 pages
published in 1985

About a decade ago, when promoting her book Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood said some dumb things while distancing it and herself from science fiction, insising it was “speculative fiction” (ironically a term invented by that most hardcore of sf writers, Robert Heinlein when he tried to make sf respectable half a century before Atwood) and being dismissive about “talking squid in space”. Science fiction fandom has a long history for (imagined) sleights and while Atwood has long since walked back her remarks, sf fans tend to still be a bit grumpy about it. Yet Atwood does have a point that she isn’t writing for science fiction readers and therefore her books shouldn’t be judged by science fiction standards.

Which is fair enough. If you read the Handmaid’s Tale it soon becomes clear that though it is science fiction, it’s science fiction in the dystopian tradition of Orwell and Huxley rather than in the tradition of e.g. Heinlein’s If This Goes On…, another story of religious oppression in a future America. That has flying cars and blaster guns and other sfnal paraphernalia though no space squid, while Atwood’s story is set in what are still recognisable eighties suburbs.

You get the impression that Atwood wanted to keep her setting as mundane as possible to enable her readers to take it seriously in a way they wouldn’t have been able with the Heinlein, because all that sf furniture would be in the way. Not that Atwood doesn’t sneak in some, actually quite a lot, of sfnal prediction, in her backstory of how the America of The Handmaid’s Tale came to be, but most of that is political and sociological rather than technological.

Dystopian fiction, even more so than science fiction in general, always shows the age it was written in, the specific dangers it warns against quickly becoming obsolete. This is true of the Handmaid’s Tale as well, rooted as it is in second wave feminism, the Iranian revolution against the Shah and the rise of the fundamentalist right in America in the early eighties. Atwood basically predicts a new moral crusade in America in which anti-porn feminists and christian fundamentalists join forces, after which a fundamentalist coup turns the US into a explicitly Christian dictatorship similar to real life Iran. Some of that backstory might seem quaint now, but the America Atwood created is still chilling, if only because there are still people out there whom would consider it an utopia.

Dystopias are supposed to be universal and timeless; “a boot stamping on a human face — forever” as Orwell put it. Every dystopia shares that same flaw, like their utopian counterparts of being outside history, in stasis. But The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t. It’s epilogue made clear that the Dominion of the US came to an end, that was part of a broader late 20th century trend towards gender repressive theocracies, along with countries e.g. Iran, quite possibly also an inspiration for Atwood in real life. That makes The Handmaid’s Tale so much more chilling than the perfect dystopia of 1984, because all the suffering shown in it is reduced to a presentation during an academic conference, of no great concern to the historians talking about it.

That callousness is much more frightening to me than imagining a future in which everybody is either victim or oppressor. It’s also shown in the main story, when the protagonist, Offred, encounters some Japanese tourists on a visit to Gilead, men and women both, to whom she’s no more than a curiosity, her clothing and status something exotic to tell the folks back home about. Their indifference, as that of the historians in the epilogue, more interested in who Offred may have been an handmaid to, is jarring when you spent the rest of the novel in Offred’s head. The epilogue shows she at least did get her story out in the end, even if few people cared.

I grew up in a fairly leftwing family, of a rather middleclass sort and that meant that my parents had a lot of magazines and books about various oppressive regimes around the house which I, as a verocious reader, read quite a lot of. Not to mention the books about domestic abuse and child abuse my father also brough home for his work, as a council civil servant working on these issues. The Handmaid’s Tale, the story of Offred, brought down so low we never learn her real name, only that she’s Of Fred, reminds me a lot of some of those stories told about e.g. women in Chile or South Africa.

And that’s the other and more important difference with If This Goes On…. Offred’s story is that of survival, of Illegitimi non carborundum, don’t let the bastards grind you down, of one woman’s attempt to stay true to herself even in the bleakest of oppression. Heinlein’s story on the other hand is the stirring tale of a second American revolution bringing an end to tyranny, largely through the efforts of one man.

That’s why The Handmaid’s Tale has stayed with me, whereas I’ve barely thought about If This Goes On… since I read it a few decades ago. Atwood’s story is so chilling because despite some of the zeerust in its future, it’s firmly rooted in the real world, even more so than classic dystopias like 1984. An unsettling book, but one any science fiction reader should read.