Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (2 stars)

The first in this series showed a lot of promise, but the rest failed to hold my interest, and this was the weakest of the trilogy. Despite this being a short novel I found myself struggling to finish it. Spoilers ahead.

In a really obvious plot quirk, Binti doesn't investigate the fire in the root where supposedly her entire family perished. Wouldn't you want to know? What if they were still alive? Spoiler: they are still alive, she finds out later. This was very awkward plot construction.

It takes a long time to walk anywhere. I don't understand this world where the technology exists for spaceships, but people don't even have bikes? Pedicabs? Scooters? Motorbikes? Cars?

Just like in the first novel, Binti just has to ask and interplanetary wars stop. These two races have a long and bloody history, and just started a new war, but Binti says:

The war between Khoush and Meduse ends

shoots out some lightning, and everyone agrees to stop fighting. Right.

When she dies it's super obvious she is going to be resurrected by some deus ex machina bullshit at Saturn. My only surprise was that it wasn't the favourite deus ex otjize (I was so sick of hearing about otjize) which has no end of magical properties. Instead it turned out to be even more lame, it's the "microbes", duuuude:

"When your body was placed in my chamber, my microbes went to work. You are probably more microbes than human now."
I frowned. "What does that mean? I look and feel like myself. I remember who I am. I was dead, right?"

It's super lazy. The author might as well have said "bacteria", "space dust" or "icing sugar" for all the sense that makes.

And then we find out that this whole thing with the edan was just the most complicated way possible to solicit a Yelp review for a university.

"So you've known I would eventually be...what I now am, so you sent for me?"
"Yes. We are many things. What is your opinion of the university?"

Meanwhile, turns out the war is back on, but now Binti is safely ensconced at the University and the president tells her:

But until then, don’t worry too much. This fight is old and if the Enyi Zinariya are going to help the Himba, then at least your families will be safe. With you gone, the Khoush will not bother with the Himba, I don’t think.”

So, essentially: "don't worry that you triggered a war, this has been going on for ages. I mean wars are pretty sensible and innocent people don't tend to get hurt, so I'm sure your family still on the planet will be fine."

and then we find out Binti has essentially enslaved New Fish:

“About five miles on land and she can fly about seven miles up,” she said. “That’s not so bad, is it?” I smiled and said, “No. Thank the Seven.” “But unless she follows, no more taking university and solar shuttles, okay? New Fish can take you.”

So, because she saved your life, New Fish now needs to follow around wherever Binti wants to go, never moving away more than a few miles. And the president has no problem committing New Fish to shuttling Binti around whenever she want for the rest of Binti's life. And it doesn't even seem to occur to Binti that she just made New Fish her slave. WTF?

In this series Okorafor explored some powerful topics of racism and coming of age for a young woman. But it ultimately fell flat for me on weak characters other than Binti and unbelievable hairpin plot turns.

2 stars.