Nnedi Okorafor’s africanfuturist stories often explore what happens when humans encounter and are transformed by aliens. Remote Control is the latest such story, presented in the form of a short novella.
As compared to the aliens in Lagoon and the Binti trilogy, the aliens in Remote Control are mysterious in their identity and their motives, and we are left primarily seeing their impact on the main character.
The Basic Plot
When Fatima picks up an object that has fallen from the sky, she gains strange and terrifying powers that ultimately lead to tragedy. She forgets her name and adopts the alias Sankofa. She’s left to wander a futuristic Ghana alone from a very young age.
Sankofa attains a mythic reputation as “Death’s adopted daughter.” People either fear her or revere her, and even the reverence seems tinged by fear. Over all, her existence strikes me as very lonely; for most of the book her only companion is a fox named Movenpick, and while there seems to be something unusual about the fox, he’s not a Disney-style talking animal.
My Impressions
It is this loneliness that left me struggling to really connect with Remote Control. I find that dialog and character relationships can really deepen my enjoyment of a book, and without that, a story can feel a little well, remote.
(Yes, I realize that I just complained about Come Tumbling Down having too much dialog and not enough action. I am like Goldilocks over here, looking for the book that is “just right.”)
I also felt like the book left me wanting just a little more resolution. I don’t know if the intention is for Sankofa’s story to continue in future novellas, or if the story was merely meant to make the reader think, but I found it wasn’t quite satisfying enough.
I think Remote Control’s greatest strength is how it interestingly combines africanfuturism with a sort of more mythological theme. I just wish I had enjoyed it a little more.
Side note: I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but dang this cover is gorgeous. Sometimes I feel like I really miss out on the book cover experience when I read almost everything digitally.
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