Tag: nnedi okorafor

Sci-Fi Novellas

- Paige Leave a comment

The genre of science fiction (aka sci-fi) can sometimes be a little daunting to start reading.  From dystopias to space operas to time travel, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s where novellas can come in! Novellas are works that are longer than a short story, but shorter than a typical novel, so a perfect entry point into any genre.  Also, November is National Science Fiction Month so it’s the perfect time to start! Here are some sci-fi novellas that will let you dip your toe into the genre before fully diving in. All descriptions are provided by the publisher.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot #1) by Becky Chambers

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers’ series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter? — Tordotcom

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) by Nghi Vo

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She’s a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece. — Tordotcom

Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan Mcguire

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost. — Tordotcom

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins―resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories―have only three unbreakable vows.

First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.

Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark.

The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget. — Tordotcom

In the Shadow of the Fall (Guardians of the Gods #1) by Tobi Ogundiran

Ashâke is an acolyte in the temple of Ifa, yearning for the day she is made a priest and sent out into the world to serve the orisha. But of all the acolytes, she is the only one the orisha refuse to speak to. For years she has watched from the sidelines as peer after peer passes her by and ascends to full priesthood.

Desperate, Ashâke attempts to summon and trap an orisha―any orisha. Instead, she experiences a vision so terrible it draws the attention of a powerful enemy sect and thrusts Ashâke into the center of a centuries-old war that will shatter the very foundations of her world. — Tordotcom

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein

In a queer, noir technothriller of fractured identity and corporate intrigue, a trans woman faces her fear of losing her community as her past chases after her. This bold, thought-provoking debut science-fiction novella from a Lambda Award finalist is an exciting and unpredictable look at the fluid nature of our former and present selves.

In mid-21st-century Kansas City, Dora hasn’t been back to her old commune in years. But when Dora’s ex-girlfriend Kay is killed, and everyone at the commune is a potential suspect, Dora knows she’s the only person who can solve the murder.

As Dora is dragged back into her old community and begins her investigations, she discovers that Kay’s death is only one of several terrible incidents. A strange new drug is circulating. People are disappearing. And Dora is being attacked by assailants from her pre-transition past.

Meanwhile, It seems like a war between two nefarious corporations is looming, and Dora’s old neighborhood is their battleground. Now she must uncover a twisted conspiracy, all while navigating a deeply meaningful new relationship. — Tachyon Publications

Made Things (Made Things #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

She was good at making friends.

Coppelia is a street thief, a trickster, a low-level con artist. But she has something other thieves don’t… tiny puppet-like friends: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works.

After a surprising discovery shakes their world to the core, Coppelia and her friends must reexamine everything they thought they knew about their world, while attempting to save their city from a seemingly impossible new threat. — Tordotcom

 

She Who Knows (She Who Knows #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

When there is a call, there is often a response.

Najeeba knows.

She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village. But it’s not a terrible thing, just strange. So when she leaves with her father and brothers to mine salt at the Dead Lake, there’s neither fanfare nor protest. For Najeeba, it’s a dream come true: travel by camel, open skies, and a chance to see a spectacular place she’s only heard about. However, there must have been something to the rule, because Najeeba’s presence on the road changes everything and her family will never be the same.

Small, intimate, up close, and deceptively quiet, this is the beginning of the Kponyungo Sorceress. — DAW

Ready to dive in deeper for National Science Fiction Month? Here are some of our Sci-fi related blog posts for more recommendations!

Have any recommendations for us and fellow readers? Leave them in the comments below!

Afrofuturism

- Elena Leave a comment

Celebrate Black History Month with Afrofuturism! Afrofuturism is a literary and artistic movement that combines Black history and culture with futuristic and science fiction elements. Check out the following titles available at Davenport Public Library. (Descriptions below provided by the publisher.)

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others. When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind. – Goodreads

How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin

Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.

Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul. – Hachette Book Group

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach. If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself–but first she has to make it there, alive. – Macmillan Publishers

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot—if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war. – Akashic Books

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria. The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky. In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together. And they’re willing to fight an entire war to get there. – Penguin

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as the Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere.

But the Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.

During the month of February, look for the “Afrofuturism” display at all three branches for more recommendations.

Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

- Ann Leave a comment
Cover of the book: Star Wars From a Certain Point of View
Cover of the book: Star Wars From a Certain Point of View

 

Star Wars: A New Hope  is turning 40 this year, so while it’s exciting to look forward to the latest movie, coming out, it’s also fun to revisit the one that started it all. One book that’s made that especially fun is Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View. It’s glorified fanfiction, but it’s by some great authors, some who have already written extensively in the Star Wars universe, others who are better known for work in several genres. The results span genres from short stories, to incident reports, to epic poems, and are often funny and occasionally devastating.

The stories start at the beginning of A New Hope, and follow various cover rebels, Jedi, storm troopers, cantina band members, and family members – fleshing out characters that are often little more than a line of dialogue in the movie.

I was initially excited about this book because it features some of my favorite authors. Nnedi Okorafor has been promoting her story, “The Baptist,” about the backstory of the trash compactor monster. Okorafor takes her character seriously, and it works, following the creature as she’s captured on her home planet and taken to the Death Star, where she’s forced to examine her life and  and how she examine her life and her role in the universe.

Other stories look at the ridiculous aspects of living in the Star Wars universe. Mallory Ortberg’s “An Incident Report” follows how difficult it is when your coworker forces his religion down your throat. In general, I liked the Empire points of view best, probably because they often focused on office politics and being frustrated at work , such as “The Sith of Datawork” by Ken Liu looks at the paperwork required to cover up a missing shuttle, or “Born in a Storm” by Daniel José Older,  about a stormtrooper who knows he’d make an amazing dewback rider.

Some other stories I especially liked were “Not for Nothing” by Mur Lafferty, a chapter from a tell all rock in roll memoir of one of the cantina band members, and Kieron Gillen’s “The Trigger” even if it is probably cheating (it features Dr Aphra, an black market archaeologist he created for the Darth Vader comics, but she’s one of my favorites, even if she’s not from the movie, so I’m glad he snuck her in.)

The book is arranged chronologically through Star Wars: A New Hope,  so while I initially skipped around to see what Meg Cabot aproached a Star Wars story, or what Wil Wheaton might be like as a writer, I also enjoyed going back to the beginning and seeing how people imagined the backstories scene by scene. The stories don’t build on each other, so if you are familiar with the movie, you can read as many or as few as you like in any order, and they still work.

It’s fun to imagine all the stories behind Episode IV and to see glimpses of Luke, Leia and Han as side characters in someone else’s grand drama. If you are planning on rewatching the film, I would definitely recommend checking this book out first.

The Library has print copies of Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, as well as the audiobook available on CD with several readers.