Zoo City

Wildly imaginative SF novel set in Johannesburg at a time when people who've committed crimes are mysteriously saddled with an animal, which sets them apart as a class (the animalled have to live in their own ghetto and have trouble scraping together a living outside proper society). Our heroine is a kind of detective because she has a strange talent for finding lost things - and intuiting what things people have lost. It's weird and brilliant and utterly original.

Really enjoyed the Shining Girls but couldn't get into Zoo City

Zoo City amazes me. So many threads - fantasy, popular culture, contemporary varieties of exploitation - all braided into one satisfying story. And a hard-boiled hero who hasn't finished deciding who she is and what she's going to do about it.

Excellent book, a fascinating concept and a fast paced read with lots of action. I got it as part of the Humble Book Bundle and it's worth every penny and more! I hope Beukes writes more in this style!

Zinzi December carries a sloth on her back. He is a mark of what she has done wrong. In an alternate Johannesburg, the animalled, or “zoos”, live as outcasts, surviving as best they can in inner city slums. With Zinzi's animal she got a gift, the ability to find lost things. She doesn't find lost people until one day she breaks her own rule and gets drawn into the shady underbelly of the local music scene.

Zoo City is a hard one to categorise, it's fantasy with a science fiction mindset and a noir plot. Fantasy never really tries to explain the whys behind supernatural creatures and at least here, in Zinzi's world, there have been attempts from scientists to work out what's going on. Some of this is explained through faux extracts, articles and even a section that looks suspiciously like an Amazon product page complete with a range of customer reviews.

The mashavi, or magic, is based on a Zimbabwe myth of wandering spirits, the mashave, however it becomes a sign of guilt for the zoos. They can be singled out easily, persecuted beyond their original crimes and given no second chance to make their life good. This echoes the perceptions people have of ex-cons in our world.

Africa is a continent with many social problems and Zoo City cleverly manages to weave them into one story without treading on any toes. That's the joy of speculative fiction, it can handle controversial and terrifying subject matters from an angle that makes an enjoyable read but also gives you pause for thought.

On a lighter note, I loved Sloth. Don't be mistaken in thinking these are talking animals. They are pretty normal except for being linked to their humans and they communicate in normal animal ways. Yet Sloth is a fully formed character, at times being Zinzi's conscience, even if it is self preservation behind it. I kinda want a sloth myself!