Nnedi Okorafor

Robin Miles

Home

Binti

The thrilling sequel to the Hugo and Nebula-winning Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, and a finalist for the 2018 Hugo and Nommo Awards It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace. After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony? The Binti Series Book 1: Binti Book 2: Binti: Home Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade Praise for Nnedi Okorafor: "Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" - Wanuri Kahiu, award winning Kenyan film director of Pumzi and From a Whisper "A perfect dove-tailing of tribal and futuristic, of sentient space ships and ancient cultural traditions, Binti was a beautiful story to read.” – Little Red Reviewer “Binti is a wonderful and memorable coming of age story which, to paraphrase Lord of the Rings, shows that one girl can change the course of the galaxy.” – Geek Syndicate “Binti packs a punch because it is such a rich, complex tale of identity, both personal and cultural... and like all of Nnedi Okorafor’s works, this one is also highly, highly recommended.” – Kirkus Reviews "There's more vivid imagination in a page of Nnedi Okorafor's work than in whole volumes of ordinary fantasy epics." -Ursula Le Guin "Okorafor's impressive inventiveness never flags." - Gary K. Wolfe on Lagoon At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Binti: Home

Sarah Sammis

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor is the second of the Binti novellas. A year has passed, a year of Binti and Okwu being bound together. A year of being students at Oomza University. But it's time to return home and face her family, her elders, her people.

Couple / Family	Uhoria	Labyrinth	33CC99

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"Prepare to fall in love with Binti." —Neil Gaiman Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella! 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. The Binti Series Book 1: Binti Book 2: Binti: Home Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade PRAISE FOR BINTI "Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" — Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor won the Hugo for best novella in 2016. It's primarily set on a spaceship as Binti, the only Himba to be offered a spot at Oomza University.

The Himba as Binti describes them through her inner monolog are a people tied to the Earth. They show it through otjize paste made from local ochre colored mud they coat their hair in the in part. But Binti has a head for numbers and a desire to expand her horizons.

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Sunny

Okay, so, unfortunately this novella left me very underwhelmed and extremely disappointed. I had been looking forward to reading this so much, and had been keeping my eye out for it for so long that I was so excited to finally get to it through Audible.

Don't get me wrong, the writing is nice and descriptive, I really feel like I got to know Binti. I loved the descriptions of her home and its comforts and how it brought her peace. It was something that definitely resonated with me and made me happy that homesickness was touched on so in depth, it made the experience more real for me.
The initial descriptions and explanations into the Himba tribe and otjize and other aspects of Binti's lifestyle were wonderful. They opened my eyes to things I was vaguely aware of, but gave me a foundation to start researching around, which I am extremely grateful for.
Binti is an extremely strong, proud character, and I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for her. She deals with discrimination and difficulty with her head held high and I just had to respect her so much. I also enjoyed how the author was able to show her as vulnerable, as flawed, and as a little hot headed and feisty, jumping into things first before asking questions. These flaws were what brought Binti to life and made her an endearing character. They demonstrated her age and reminded the reader that, yes, she is a young woman in an impossible situation.

Now, the things I have an issue with. I went into this expecting AT LEAST a glimpse into Oomza University, however, this was not the case at all. We were introduced to a few professors of different, alien species, which were interesting! However, that was all we got, an introduction. We didn't learn anything about any of them.

Well over half of the novella was Binti explaining the otjize to us, to the rude people around her, to the classmates on the ship on the way to Oomza, to the invading, murderous aliens (more on this later). I understand how important the otjize was, not only to Binti but also to the story, I just think the amount it was mentioned and explained again and again was far too much considering the size of the story wanting to be conveyed. Another good chunk of the novella was Binti entering a meditative state and counting or breaking down equations, which, okay, I got that from the first explanation. Every. Single. Time. This was explained. It was repetitive and unnecessary.

The flow of the story started off well, it had a good build up, and you genuinely felt excited for Binti to break away from tradition and be the first of the Himba tribe to be accepted and attend Oomza Uni. Then, when THE THING happened, it was honestly a shock. I enjoyed how stunned I was and it took me a little bit to realise that, whoa, that actually happened! And her edan, an object that has remained dormant for years, that her father a master technician can't crack, suddenly bursts to life and not only protects Binti from the attacking Meduse by rendering them ashen and dead, it allows her to communicate with them.
But thennnnn.... We got stuck. The descriptions of Binti looking out into space, reflecting over her otjize, and the brief encounters with the Meduse were repetitive and honestly boring. I was just asking for SOMETHING to happen. When the plot actually did progress, I just... didn't care, to put it bluntly. 

I understand compassion and I understand empathy. I understand the situation Binti was placed in was tenuous and she had no choice other than side with the Meduse to get back what they want, or to die. But the ending was honestly such a let down and came across as quite juvenile, in that yes, in a perfect world, that would be the best outcome. The two warring sides immediately come to a truce, the hero and the "soldier" from the opposing side become fast friends, and the Uni offer a place to that Meduse. But... Its just not real. Here was where I lost it completely, honestly. It would be nice, but it just isn't real. These Meduse KILLED a lot of people. They have been warring and despising the human race for however long. Binti agrees to help them and suddenly all that history, for both sides, is discarded? No, it doesn't work like that.
Also, allow me to reiterate: she becomes friends with Okwu, who up until just before meeting their chief, calls her evil and how he wishes he could just kill her? Hm. I understand that stressful situations could drive them together, Binti growing to like Okwu due to him feeding her and taking time to talk to her, but it seems like it's just forced. 

We also NEVER get an explanation as to what the edan truly is, what it's true purpose is and why, after 5 years of remaining dormant in Binti's care it suddenly switched on?? 
I was also very confused about the apparent healing effects of the otjize on the Meduse, which was also never explained but was used in multiple instances of bonding which kinda made me uncomfortable. Binti herself applies the otjize to not only Okwu, who she forms a very very base friendship with, but also the Chief of the Meduse. Who, up until 5 minutes ago, wanted her dead. Okay. It's also not like they can't apply it themselves, they actually strip (why? And why wasn't this given more than a "oh, I'm naked"?) and coat Binti in the otjize, so these interactions aren't necessary. The invasion of personal space and in such conditions made me super uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, while I'm interested in the uni and learning more about the alien species, I don't think that this is enough to convince me to pick up the rest of the series.

Michaela Hudson

This was fun overalls but some parts felt so anti-climatic and the scientific elements were a bit shallow, which means, I just wanted it to be longer 😔

Sasha-Gaye Solomon

Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib is Himba. She's whip smart, sharp and also brave as hell. Her adventure is worth the 1-2 hours it will take to flip through this book. Issues of identity, home as a point that's not fixed, but something more fluid, metaphysical, and even spiritual take form in space. To me, home is something that is metaphysical and this novella introduces us to the never static, fluid idea of it. Is it a place? Is it shape and structure that unfolds when we do and be? Is it something you carry with you even when you're not there? How do we tether that connection?

There are a few parallels here with 'Lilith's Brood' by Octavia Butler, which coincidentally I'm on a break from reading right now. It's short, imaginative and I thoroughly love how water, hair, culture and even skincare create a compelling story about what happens when you venture off-world. 

Off to read Home and I look forward to the third book coming out soon!

I loved it but I haven't read the next book but are there really no repercussions for the Meduse killing the entire ships population??

Victoria 

Deepika Ramesh

This's my 2nd in #24in48readathon.

I have never been a fan of sci-fi. But, 'Binti' was something more than that. While sci-fi was the ground, the novella's beautifully built on a free-spirited prodigy's love for culture, home, and above all... peace. :) I'll definitely write a longish blog about this book in my 'Readathon' post.

Joy Bush

Cheri Fuller

Liked it very much. Short but I got a good feel for the characters and enjoyed the story's progression. Will definitely continue on to the next book.

the Night Masquerade

Apiecalypse Jen

Includes a brand-new Binti story! Collected for the first time in a trade paperback omnibus edition, the Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning Binti trilogy, the story of one extraordinary girl's journey from her home to distant Oomza University. In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family's concerns, Binti's talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey. But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti's spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination. There is more to the history of the Medusae--and their war with the Khoush--than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace. But even if Binti achieves this remarkable feat, it's not the end of her story. For this lone Himba woman, now bonded with a Medusa and forever changed by this bond, still must find a way to survive and thrive at Oomza University amid swirling interspecies biases. And eventually, she must return home to test the strength of the fragile peace she worked so hard to win. Collected now for the first time in omnibus form--and introducing a new Binti story--follow Binti's journey in this groundbreaking sci-fi trilogy.

Binti: The Complete Trilogy

Justin Jerome Price

Binti: The Complete Trilogy is a compilation of three young-adult science fiction novellas centered around Binti, a teenager torn between upholding the traditions of her family and African tribe and wanting to learn more about the universe around her. Her family is well-known and respected in her tribe for their astrolabes- a device that serves both as a translator and navigation tool. Binti is one of the best crafters of astrolabes in her family and people from all over come to buy them due to their quality. Yet wanting more, she applies to prestigious Oozma University, a university on another planet that accepts beings from all over the cosmos so long as they show exceptional aptitude. She is accepted due to her prodigious mathematical ability and leaves for the university despite the umbrage she receives from her tribe and family. She departs on a living spaceship for the University. But on the way, the ship is attacked by an alien race known as the Meduse, a warrior race of jellyfish-like beings who believe in honor. Binti watches as the Meduse kills almost everyone except for her. The story focuses on Binti's attempts to mediate peace between the Meduse and Khoush--another African tribe that looks down on the tribe Binti is from due to their customs--while also trying to fit in and keeping a hold of her identity.
     What I really enjoyed about the story is the interplay of science fictional tropes and African mythology. Nnedi Okorafor, the author, is Nigerian-American and you feel the pride and love she has for Africa. All of the tribes within the story are portrayed in a respectful manner, showing how their history informs their beliefs. Binti's tribe,the Himba, for example are very introspective and feel a deep connection to the desert land they inhabit. So much so that the women of the tribe create a mixture from the desert clay and several plant extracts called ootize that the women use to cover themselves. And while in less deft hands this would be just interesting details, the ootize becomes a symbol of Binti's struggle between tradition and progress. It is because of the ootize that she is able to broker peace between the Meduse and Khoush. And yet she feels naked without it and is very self-conscious when it thins on her body. She feels isolated from her tribe and family, since leaving the Himbalands is considered an unclean act. And there is tension between her, her family, and her tribe when she reconnects. Furthermore, when she begins to have PTSD-induced panic attacks, she finds comfort in the desert of the planet where the university is built. Thus, the various cultures of the tribes is not just window-dressing but a way of understanding character motivation. And there is no character more deserving of understanding in the story than Binti.
     Binti is a wonderfully complex character. She is born with an innate ability to tree, to go into a mathematical-induced trance. In this trance, she becomes calm and focused. Due to this ability and her ability to craft astrolabes, she is considered a 'master harmonizer' by her family and tribe. Able to understand see all aides of a conflict, a master harmonize is meant to inspire peace. Yet Binti inner psyche is anything but. As mentioned briefly, she is torn between family tradition and wanting to learn about the universe. She worries that her tribe considers her unclean, tainted due to leaving her lands. That she has lost her identity. This fear is amplified as Binti, in an attempt to gain trust of the Meduse in order to serve as an ambassador, is painfully infused with Meduse DNA without her consent. This turns her plaited hair into translucent blue tentacles similar to the Meduse and is connected to the Meduse hive mind. And as we watch the story unfold from her perspective, we see how conflicted her emotions become as one of her few friends at the university is one of the very Meduse that was present on the ship. She feels torn between wanting to be a unifier, to feeling rage against what has happened to her and her classmates. And it forces her to question her identity. Especially as her transformations leave her feeling isolated from everyone around her.
    
 All in all, Binti: The Complete Trilogy was a great read. Really enjoyed it.

menna

Such a fast and fun read! Really enjoyed it.✨

Midori Kobayashi

2/5stars

Clear victim of second book syndrome, did not like it all that much. It did bring some great ideas but at the end of it I was just left wanting more. More of the characters, the adventure, the "magic" the technology, I WANTED DETAILS!! 

But I will still be reading the third book and hope that gives all that this one couldn't.

3.5/5stars


But deep down inside me, I wanted . . . I needed it. I couldn’t help but act on it. The urge was so strong that it was mathematical.

A very quick read but there is so much packed into this one. One good thing was that our main character was inspired by African folks rather than whites for a change. Binti is a smart ambitious girl who wants to leave her hometown and home planet to go study in this university many many light-years away and the fact that none of her family supports her makes it all the more challenging for her. 



I believed I could only be great if I were curious enough to seek greatness.



She's quick-witted, she thinks on her feet, she has a good heart and I was rooting for her since the very start. Also one thing that really touched me the significance of her home/her roots shown through her "otjize" and it's significance in her world. If you're still not convinced, this book has won both Hugo and the Nebula Award, you're gonna miss out if you skip this one. GO READ IT. 



We prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward.




  CWs for the book: Animal death (mentioned), Blood, Death, Gore, Murder (mass), Racism. Please stay away if you're NOT in the headspace for any of these

This book is so fast! I simply can not believe how much plot is packed in such a short novella. 
I can not help but wonder how would it be written if it was a full length novel.

Still interesting, but I really liked the pace of the first book and I hoped for something similar. This one was a bit slower.

Ary Dias 

"We prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward"

Ryan LaFerney

** spoiler alert **
           Dr. Okorafor can do no wrong in my book. Binti is a brisk novella that deals with issues of race, empire and culture. Just under a hundred pages, it’s a quick read about a young African woman named Binti for short, who leaves her family to study at a prestigious interstellar university called Oomza Uni. She’s particularly skilled at mathematics, and she’s the first woman in her family to undertake such a significant journey. Little does she know just how harrowing and significiant this journey would be.

While traveling to Oomza Uni, her ship is attacked by aliens known as the Meduse, a floating, jellyfish-like species that dislike humans. After the Meduse kill all of the passengers (in a descriptive account that felt like something out of Ridley Scott's Alien), Binti escapes to her room, where she is eventually able to talk down the invaders, negotiate her safety, and achieve peace between humanity and the Meduse — all before the ship arrives as the school.

What is interesting is that the violence that concerns the Meduse is the violence that has victimized them. The Meduse seek revenge for what the Oomza University scientists or their field operatives have done. They assaulted and mutilated a Meduse chief, removing the very stinger from his body and bringing it back to Oomza to be displayed in a museum (seems quite reminiscent of how the West has assaulted many tribes in Africa and around the world and have put their objects - many of them not considered art but actually practical and ritual objects - in museums). The Meduse want revenge and that's what this attack is all about. Binti, being able to communicate with the Meduse, is able to help them achieve their goal. The Oomza has no idea how the stinger ended up in their museum, how the skulls ended up in their hospital, but it was all for science and they regret any hurt that was caused. If only this sort of understanding happened often in the real world.

I look forward to reading the next two books.

Nnedi Okorafor's wildly successful Binti helped launch Tor.com's novella-publishing imprint (which also publishes Martha Well's Murderbot series) before winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2016. Binti was a shape-shifting story of adventure, trauma, transformation and communication in the guise of sci-fi thriller/horror. It followed its namesake heroine from her Himba roots on Earth to faraway Oomza University, where hundreds of different peoples from across the galaxy go to study. On the journey to Oomza Uni everyone dies expect for Binti when the ship is hijacked by hostile aliens. And that's how we meet the Meduse. The Meduse look like human-sized floating jellyfish. The Meduse have a history of war specifically with the Khoush, apparently the dominant human ethnocultural group and whose monopoly on space travel seems absolute: the Meduse appear unaware that there even are any other kinds of human until they meet Binti. However, Binti is spared because The Meduse can't touch her because of a mysterious ancient artefact she's carrying, the edan. Binti wraps up with her making it to Oomza Uni and befriending the Meduse.

 In Binti: Home, Okorafor sends her heroine back to Earth on a quest to reconcile the new, conflicting parts of herself with her roots and its quite astounding.
In Binti: Home, we see Binti dealing with the aftermath of her trauma and we see that the Himba people's marginalization and oppression does not make them immune to prejudices of their own. Its a twisting of conventional genre structures, Home is is the coming of age story that I thought Binti was going to be (Binti was an intense sci-fi thriller). And its complete with an initiation sequence. 

Okorafor's writing is extremely beautiful yet economical. Her writing honestly reminds me of one of the greats of sci-fi/fantasy: Ursual K Le Guin (which is high praise indeed). 

Home is a novella about prejudice, family, and growing up. And its highly recommended.

renee badenoch

I've read a few Nnedi Okorafor short stories that I've really loved, but did not enjoy this one. The bones of the story are awesome. A young girl named Binti from the fictional Himba tribe in Western Africa leaves her family and tribe, after being accepted into the most prestigious academy in the Galaxy, Oozma University. On the way, her ship is attacked by a jelly-fish like alien race, The Meduse, who is seeking revenge on Oozma University, which illegally holds the chiefs stinger. With all the crew on the ship brutally slaughtered save for Binti, she must negotiate for her life with the Meduse, and try to broker a piece agreement between the Meduse and Oozma University to prevent the loss of more life. It's dramatic, it's original, it's extremely high stakes. 

Where the book faltered, for me, was in the writing style. The prose of this book is heavily tell over show. All of the characters on the ship who are murdered have been introduced for less than a chapter before they are murdered. It's hard to feel any sense of personal connection to the loss beyond the horror of the event, because none of them stand out as more than a name. One of the fallen is referred to as "the boy [Binti] was growing to love," when he existed for less than a page for the reader. This happened a lot, especially with concepts that are introduced and not explained, like the Astrolabes which are mentioned constantly, but whose appearance and purpose remain vague. 

The flow of the story picked up more at the end, almost as if Okorafor was finding her stride in the last few chapters. I'm going to read the next book to see if the story can keep engaging me more than the prose dissatisfies me.

Janice Hopper

** spoiler alert **
           What an interesting story this is. The main character, Binti, is a prodigiously talented mathematician. She's heading out to an interstellar university, the first of her people to do so. Mind you, the only reason others of her people haven't left is because they prefer to stay home in their ancestral lands. They're all prodigiously talented at various technological things. 

On the trip to university, the ship runs into some problems, i.e., a hostile species with a gripe who want to start a war. She has to find out if there's anything she can do.

I really enjoyed the background of the main character. The Himba people were unknown to me. I had to look them up to find out some real-life facts about them and the otjize paste that plays such a big part in the story. It's really interesting stuff.

That said, I kept visualizing the Meduse as a cross between a portuguese man-o-war and a dalek. O.o That threw me out of the story a little. And I always find it a little problematic that something so physically DIFFERENT can behave pretty much like a human being. And Binti's situation at the end of the novella reminded me a bit of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. Nothing wrong with that.

It's a different kind of story, in a GOOD way. I listened to the audio from Scribd. The narrator did a good job, and seemed to handle the non-English words with aplomb. Made me wish I had copy I could LOOK at while the narration was going on though, since I couldn't always guess what the words were and how they were spelled. 

The only other thing I've read by Nnedi Okorafor is Who Fears Death. She's definitely on my list of people to look for though.

Haley Murray

A.L.L.

I enjoyed this book, but not as much as Nnedi's other works. The concept of math being a kind of magical meditation is something I have trouble wrapping my head around, but that is probably my personal bias and feelings towards math.

Kirsten Simkiss

I really feel like this deserves 3.5 stars, but I'm rating it 4 stars because of how much I loved the world. I thought the characters fell a little flat, but the concepts of the fish space ships and the cultures of the different races and species were enormously interesting. 

I loved the main character's culture. It's so refreshing to read about something not Euro-centric. Binti's culture of harmonizing and creating astrolabes, painting clay on their skin, and the way her culture focuses on the home is great. I thought the Meduse culture was also interesting - or at least what little we learned of it. I loved Binti's superhuman transformation. I loved the different races represented at the school. I thought the concept of living ships particularly inventive. It's a kick ass world and I dig it.

But.

While I get why Binti left home for school - that motivation makes perfect sense to me - but the moment the Meduse began their slaughter on the ship, the writing seemed to weaken to me. It was harder to understand Binti's motivations and, certainly, it felt difficult to connect with Okwo. As much as it can be said that it prevented slaughter at the school, she essentially negotiates for terrorists. But rather than saying, "You killed hundreds of students!" the school instead says, "Sorry, we'll excommunicate that one guy for taking that tentacle during war time. Let's take one of your students into our school as a show of peace." It was just... an odd ending. I didn't really understand why she felt Okwo would be her friend, considering he was a force in murdering all of her previously made friends. The Meduse were also instrumental in taking away her hair - a part of her cultural identity - to replace it with their own tentacles. While great imagery, it was difficult for me to understand her forgiveness of these aliens and her motivations to help them.

I really feel like this deserves 3.5 stars more than 3 or 4, but it was an interesting read. I'd definitely recommend it to others.

Binti Home

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