Remote Control

I like this one. There's a lot of pain in this story, and also lightness. It got a little too fairytale-ish for my taste at one point, but oooh, the ending. Mhm. The audiobook is very well read too.

Another alien species related book. This young girl is given a seedling which she thinks of as a blessing and then curse, as she destroys all technology she touches, roaming around with her family dead and trying to find that which was taken from her, until she finds a place she can call a home again. That's not what others are planning for her though. Lovely ending to bring it all together again.

While an entertaining story, it failed to grab me. It started off strong, but then wandered about without ever reaching a climax or resolution, leaving me wondering what the point of any of it was. It's mostly a narrative summary of events as the main character goes through her (admittedly bizarre) life. While horrible things happen to and around her, she doesn’t seem to be all that shaken by those events. The events are drily relayed and labelled. We don’t learn much of what truly motivates her, why she makes the choices she makes. Honestly, we don’t learn much of anything that’s going on in this story, just that it’s going on.

This title did not meet my expectations in several ways. For one, it’s quite steeply priced. For the price of a big fat novel, what I got was a novella. Second, it is marketed as science fiction, but there was very little science in it. Last but not least, there were various inconsistencies or contrived circumstances that undermined my suspension of disbelief.

What it has going for it is the scenery. It’s a different setting than the majority of books, and that alone made it worth reading. That and the strong start. If the rest of the novella had delivered on the strong beginning, this might have developed into a four or five star story. I did enjoy reading it but I wasn’t as blown away as the hype around this title had me hoping for.

This book is about the adopted daughter of Death. It’s an afrofuturist magical realism story set in Ghana; lots in here about shea butter and the matriarchal society really shines through as well; enjoyed the light touch on giving a slice of the culture.

This is a coming of age story about a young girl who suddenly has the power of death which, at the onset, is completely subconscious; it flares up as her body’s reaction to feeling threatened. Towards the beginning of the story her power kills everyone in her town including her mother and father and sibling. From then onward she roams the land from place to place and people give her anything she wants, both fearing and pitying her. Sometimes hating her. Sometimes loving her, when she eases the passing of people who are greatly suffering. Oh and a mysterious fox follows her around. Oh and whenever she touches technology (cars, robots, whatever) it ceases to function.

All of that is basically the setting and initial premise, the setup for the story. What is the story? Well, it’s a bit complicated. It feels like the coming of age story often but that’s not the only main part. There’s an evil corporation doing evil things, but that’s just really in the background. There’s a significant amount of story around how tech affects culture and vice versa. But I’d say the main story might be more about how one relates to oneself, especially the parts of oneself that are really hard to live with.

Yes, that’s a very important part of it. Perhaps the central thread. But certainly just one of many important threads. This book is more like a tapestry than a subway diagram. Which I like. That brings me to another thing I noticed, informed by my studies of cross-cultural communication. There’s a big difference between African storytelling and Western story telling. Western story telling is more about cause and effect, a focused linear plot; it’s more obvious what the plot is. Non Western cultures tend to think more holistically, like a tapestry. My thought is…this story is a really good blend of the two. It’s very cultural, it feels like the author is probably familiar with Ghana (a lot of nuances of a different culture come through), and yet it’s written so that Westerners can sink their teeth into it too.

If you’re looking to broaden your horizons into non Western literature this would be a great place to start.

The writing is beautiful. The coming of age aspects of the story are often tragic. Some plot elements felt a bit disjointed, especially for a novella. I liked the journey; the destination otoh, not as much. Would check out the author's other works.

I would have liked for this story to have gone more into the how and why, but I also understand the author's reluctance to do so. This was powerfully written, and had only bad things to say about human nature. I feel like it was written from the perspective of 2020. (Even the pandemic got a shout-out!)

I won't spoil it here, but... that ending was... brutal.