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She Who Knows and One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor #Wyrd&Wonder

By John Folk-Williams

She Who Knows

She Who Knows and One Way Witch are the first two novellas in Nnedi Okorafor’s She Who Knows trilogy. This series, in turn, is part of her larger Africanfuturist epic that reaches back 500 years to The Book of Phoenix. I’ve read three parts of Okorafor’s epic story. Who Fears Death is the story of […]

Filed Under: Secondary World Fantasy, Wyrd and Wonder Tagged With: Nnedi Okorafor, oppression, power, racism, religion, shapeshifter, spirits, transformation

Days of Shattered Faith by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By John Folk-Williams

Days of Shattered Faith

In his afterward to Days of Shattered Faith, Adrian Tchaikovsky makes the self-evident statement that this third novel in a projected series of five secondary world fantasies, known as The Tyrant Philosophers, is not a work of history. But he says that he owes a lot to a couple of historians, notably Anita Anand and […]

Filed Under: Secondary World Fantasy Tagged With: Adrian Tchaikovsky, city, colonialism, demons, monsters, power, religion, royal succession

Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broaddus

By John Folk-Williams

Breath of Oblivion Astra Black 2

Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broaddus is the second novel in his Astra Black series (following 2022’s Sweep of Stars) and moves the story of the Muungano world forward from multiple perspectives, each of which probes the internal struggles of a large cast of characters. While the novel shifts more to deepening our understanding of […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: Africanfuturism, alien life forms, colonialism, community, consciousness, family, Maurice Broaddus, oppression, power, religion

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafur #SciFiMonth

By John Folk-Williams

The Book of Phoenix

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafur adds to the great Africanfuturist epic Okorafur began in Who Fears Death (and which she continues with her new novella, She Who Knows). This is a prequel that describes the destruction that led to the world of the first novel, with its sharp division between light and dark […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic, SciFiMonth Tagged With: Africanfuturism, colonialism, genetic engineering, Nnedi Okorafor, power, religion, slavery, story-telling

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

By John Folk-Williams

Who Fears Death

Who Fears Death (2010) by Nnedi Okorafor puzzled me at first. The central character, Onyesonwu, (whose name means “who fears death”) is an outcast figure, a child of rape, who is avoided by most people and as a result angry most of the time. But the story reveals her life on two levels, the physical […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic Tagged With: Africanfuturism, colonialism, language, magic, Nnedi Okorafor, power, religion, sacrifice, shapeshifter, spirits

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

By John Folk-Williams

Parable of the Sower

So, another creeping infirmity makes it harder for me to focus for long on the printed (or ebook) page, and I have finally started listening to audio books. I started with two novels that, at first glance, could not be more dissimilar: Octavia E. Butler’s The Parable of the Sower and China Miéville’s The Last […]

Filed Under: Post-Apocalytic Tagged With: climate change, human survival, Octavia E. Butler, power, religion, social change, world collapse

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Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

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