Death of the Author - Nnedi Okorafor - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Nnedi Okorafor

GENRE: Literary Science Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: January 14, 2025

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices literary fiction with sci-fi elements, NOT science-fiction with literary elements. Story within a story. Interesting disability representation (but mild vibes of ableism), great character detailing (but mostly unlikeable characters), unusual combination of futuristic elements with traditional family drama (but the two don’t blend well), good use of Nigerian + American setting and immigrant experience (no buts here; this was great).

Plot Preview:

Zelu’s life has not been easy. Disabled since her teen years, unexpectedly fired from her university job, and facing rejection yet again for her latest manuscript, she’s the least successful in a family of high-achievers. In frustration, she decides to write a book that is unlike her earlier works and isn’t even in a genre she likes. She pens a science fiction novel titled “Rusted Robots” about an apocalyptic world dominated by robots and AI after human extinction. Much to her surprise, this novel gets huge public and critical success. And Zelu’s life changes almost overnight. But is this for the better or for the worse?

The story comes to us from two parallel narratives: a third-person POV from Zelu’s life and a first-person POV of Ankara the robot speaking from the novel “Rusted Robots”. There are also interludes in the form of interviews with Zelu’s family members.

Your experience of this book will depend on the reason you picked it. From this author, you might expect a strong speculative fiction or fantasy or science fiction. It is present in this novel, but only in parts. More than half the book is a contemporary/near-future dysfunctional family drama, so if you don’t enjoy that genre, tough luck.

Bookish Yays:

🥳 Zelu: A complex and unlikeable lead, so if you necessarily want a protagonist who grows as the book progresses, not gonna happen! But I enjoyed the accurate depiction of her selfishness and shortsightedness. She represents so many real-life people who can’t think beyond their own needs and yet whine about their lot in life. It was interesting to read a lead character who doesn’t cater to popular preferences.

🥳 Zelu’s paraplegia is not handled the way disabilities usually are in fiction (in the rare cases when disabled characters actually get the lead role.) Though wheelchair-dependent, Zelu lives her life independently, and most of the other characters don’t view her only through the lens of sympathy or curiosity. The experiences of the disabled are also captured well. I especially liked the ironic depiction of how abled people think they know better than disabled people about what works better for them. (At the time of reading this, I wasn’t aware that the author herself has experienced below-waist paralysis like her character. Okorafor was able to regain her walking ability after extensive physiotherapy and now walks with a cane. The strong undertone of truth in fictional Zelu’s story is possibly because of her creator’s life experiences.)

🥳 OwnVoices in multiple ways – the author and her character Zelu are both sci-fi authors, the author is Nigerian-American like Zelu, AND the author has also experience of disability like Zelu.

🥳 The African-American (or to be accurate, Nigerian-American) depiction is not the typical story of discrimination and struggle, though there are elements of these as well. It is refreshing to read a story of richer Nigerian-American immigrants, and their attitude toward those back in Nigeria, and vice versa.

🥳 The representation of Nigerian culture, with its glory and its blemishes. Loved the balanced portrayal. This is something most Indian-origin authors are yet to learn.

🥳 All the mentions of the yummy-sounding Nigerian food had me drooling!

🥳 Zelu’s story is set in the near future, so it also has some futuristic content such as self-driving cars (more advanced than the ones we have at present), robotic prosthetics, and commercial space travel (the kind Musk has dreamed about since ages.) I liked how these elements felt realistic enough to be part of our world a few years down the line.

🥳 Several other relevant themes such as social media fanaticism, dysfunctional family, immigrant experience, Hollywood whitewashing, cancel culture, perils of instant fame,… Most are handled well.

🥳 The ending. Won't satisfy everyone as it is open to interpretation. But I liked pondering upon the possible alternative theories and wondering which one fit best.

🥳 The title. Means so much more than it indicates.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🤔 The combination of literary fiction and science fiction sounds fabulous, but in actuality, the two stories are strictly compartmentalised and the narratives swap at random intervals. So it’s like reading two distinct stories with no bearing on each other. Only at the very end do we see a hint of the connection. It is trickier to maintain the reading flow with such diverse plotlines and writing styles (with the robot story being almost as dramatic as the human one, much to my surprise.)

🤔 The secondary characters. A healthy mix of good and not-so-good people. I wish there were at least a few positive members in Zelu’s family. Most of them were so toxic that I couldn’t figure out if they were like that because of Zelu’s rebellious nature or if Zelu turned out that way because of her family’s overprotective antagonism. Then again, a lot of their behaviour is rooted in reality, so…

🤔 The interlude interviews with Zelu’s family and friends, which appear at random in between the main story arcs. Some are really good Some made me wonder what was the point of that information.

🤔 The story-within-a-story. “Rusted Robots” the novel has the first-person narration of the humanoid Ankara. This storyline had some interesting arcs and themes but it was too ambitious a plotline and had too many character types for its length. I would have loved for this story to be its own novel as it had its strengths, but in this book, Zelu’s story held my attention much more than Ankara’s somewhat surface-level storytelling.

Bookish Yikes:

😱 In a bizarre way, (and I have no idea why), the Rusted Robots narrative contains a few elements that seem to reflect the current political shambles in the USA, which is quite weird as this book came out before the present US government came in. Zelu’s story also has a character who appears to be a weird amalgamation of Bezos and Musk. (Was it supposed to be sarcastic?!) I know this is dystopian sci-fi but I prefer the realistic dystopian components to stay away from the fictional ones.

All in all, this book offered quite an interesting reading experience. Several of its plot points fascinated me, but the characters and the “Rusted Robots” story needed some patience.

This is my first full-length novel by this acclaimed author of her self-coined term: ‘Africanfuturism’. I have read two of her standalone short stories (‘Just Out of Jupiter's Reach’ – 3.5 stars and ‘The Black Pages’ – 1.5 stars) and one short story collection titled ‘Kabu-Kabu’ – also 3.5 stars. All these stories had outstanding speculative and/or sci-fi elements, so I am a bit disappointed at the relative lack of impact created by this novel’s fantastical components. However, the dramatic content more than compensated for the relatively lacklustre sci-fi. But as the author’s core fan following is from the sci-fi world, I can only hope that they like general fiction well enough to enjoy this.

Recommended to those who enjoy atypical narratives, complex characters, and OwnVoices writing. Better if you enjoy toxic family stories. Not for those who prefer likeable characters.

This was a library read.