Binti

At 16, Binti has never been away from home. But as the first of her people to be admitted to Oozma Uni, the premier college in the galaxy, she knows she has to take this chance, and runs away in order to do it.

The setting is futuristic and involves space travel and alien species, but the central problem is very human - how do you communicate with people and cultures so very different from your own? This short novella can easily be read in a sitting, but it will stick with you longer than that. I immediately put the following two books featuring Binti on hold.

I felt immediately grounded in Binti’s world—a richly imagined indigenous culture where math is a form of spirituality and her desire to leave home for school creates family discord. Because this is a novella, things move fast—but nothing is hurried or skipped. Her voyage to school becomes a world expanding adventure punctuated by terrifying action. The resolution is satisfying, genuine and consistent. A marvelously balanced and engrossing introduction to the rest of this afrofuturistic trilogy.

This is a super hard one to rate and review.

I've read two stories by Nnedi Okorafor now, and I can absolutely say that I love the way they write and their world building. The same is true for both this and Remote Control.

I loved Binti for the first two thirds, and while I also loved elements of the final third's resolutions, particular those threads that dealt with Binti reconciling her Himba culture and the experiences she's just gone through, the overall resolution seems far too pat and swift.


I think Binti's motives and strategy for resolving the conflict with the Meduse made perfect sense, and even her admiration of some of their qualities as a species, but the fact that it all wound with the University basically saying "Yeah, show more okay, here's your thingy back, and can you leave one of your folks here as a student?" and Binti becoming a friend of theirs was far too rushed and not earned. I found it very difficult to believe that she would befriend one of them so easily after she literally witnessed them smoking everyone one the ship in front of her.


I think this ending could have worked, especially by way of examining that she'd been transformed in some way by the Meduse, but it needed more development to feel earned.

Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I love Okorafor's writing, so I'll definitely keep reading their books, and the Binti sequels to see what happens. show less

This is one of the best books I have read in a while. It hits every check mark for a satisfying read. It is an entertaining story, the writing is good, the themes are complex and thought provoking. This is the type of story that pulls you so far in, you start imagining fan fiction in your head. You empathize with the characters so strongly you feel and smell things in their world. I feel like Okorafor has kidnapped a piece of my soul because I can't my head out of Binti's.

Tor.com started publishing novellas last year and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor is the second I’ve read. It’s an amazing story about a smart young woman caught between 2 warring parties, one human and one alien. Separated from her family and then her new friends, both her talents and her outsider status amongst space-faring humanity place her in a position to broker peace. This is great science fiction with aliens and organic spaceships and ancient technology and more.
There’s a line that gets at the heart of what makes this novella particularly awesome.

Thankfully, they knew not to touch my hair again. I don’t like war either.

Binti, the main character, is different. She’s African – specifically Himba, with elaborate braids in her show more hair and covered head to toe in a paste made from a combination of oils and red clay. I love that the cover by Dave Palumbo captures these elements as they are more than just ways to describe the character and make her unique. Her hair, the red paste covering her, and the meditative trance she uses to absorb the oral tradition her father recites to her all become integral to the deeply science fictional plot.
I absolutely loved this story. The issues of culture and identity. The issues of Academia. A war based on a lack of communication. I also just finished reading Future Visions and many of the stories involved machine translation. I highly recommend you read Binti. It definitely moved Lagoon to the top of my reading pile.

Originally published here: https://mentatjack.wordpress.com/2016/02/06/review-binti-by-nnedi-okorafor/ show less

One of the things that keeps me reading Science Fiction is its ability not just to help me imagine possible futures but to look differently at the present. "Binti", which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella, is an excellent example of a new wave of Future-Africa science fiction that is generating vivid and original new futures while giving me access to an African-centric mindset.

For me, though, having a smart idea is not enough to generate outstanding Science Fiction. I also want to see strong, engaging characters that are more than just a mechanism for moving the plot along and I want writing that adds to my enjoyment in its own right.

In "Binti" Nnedi Okorafor delivered all of these things. She gives us a first-person show more account from a sixteen-year-old math genius who is the first of her people to leave her village and take up a place in the galaxy's leading university. On the way there, bad things happen that place her at the centre of a deadly conflict of cultures that she must find a way of resolving if she is to survive.

The world-building is original and fascinating and done with such skill that, even in something of novella length, it is unobtrusive because our focus is on Binti herself: her pride in her heritage, her love for her family, her need to do math at the highest level, her struggle to leave home, her grief for what is taken from her, her fear of her own imminent death and her courage in choosing a way forward. It is wonderful, compelling stuff.

Along the way, I came to understand that I had never thought of what it is like to be labelled "tribal", to be proud of that tribe, to know clearly that your tribe is part of you and to take comfort in that but to know also that your mind is hungry for more and different. It helped me understand how Euro-centric my thinking is. Not surprising perhaps, they are my tribe after all.

The only criticism I have of the book is the resolution, which felt a little too rational to me, especially considering how many academics were involved in arriving at it.

Still, Nnedi Okorafor is an academic, so perhaps she is better informed than I am or just fundamentally more optimistic.

My enjoyment of the novella was significantly enhanced by Robin Miles' narration.

She gives an outstanding performance as Binti and brought this work to life

Listen to the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of her work

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/222069018" params="color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%" height="300" iframe="true" /]

Watch the video below to hear Nnedi Okorafor's TEDtalk on Fututr Africa Science Fiction, including a reading from the beginning of "Binti".

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt0PiXLvYlU?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&...

I have two Nnedi Okorafor books in my TBR pile "Home" which is the sequel to "Binti" and "Lagoon" which tells of an alien invasion in a future Nigeria. show less

I was quite spellbound by the novella, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor which is the first story in this authors science fiction trilogy. This deceptively simple story explores a number of themes, from leaving the security of home, holding on to one’s traditions and how adaptation can become a welcome necessity.

Binti is a sixteen year old mathematical genius, born and raised in a small village in Namibia. She is of the reclusive Himba tribe. Her family are skilled at building astrolabes. She herself is extremely skilled and is considered a “harmonizer” but instead of settling for an assured future, she decides to give up her family in order to accept a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. On show more the trip to the university, her ship is attacked and overtaken by an alien race called the Meduse who seek revenge on the university for stealing something of value. In order for Binti and many, many others to survive, Binti will need all her skills to bring these warring factions to make peace.

Binti is a vividly imagined, very well written story that combines space adventure with ancient tribal culture. A very different and interesting science fiction story that entertains while it makes you think. I am eager to continue on with Binti’s story. show less