English language
Published 2024 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
Off the coast of West Africa, decades after the dangerous rise of the Atlantic Ocean, the region’s survivors live inside five partially submerged, kilometers-high towers originally created as a playground for the wealthy. Now the towers’ most affluent rule from their lofty perch at the top while the rest are crammed into the dark, fetid floors below sea level.
There are also those who were left for dead in the Atlantic, only to be reawakened by an ancient power, and who seek vengeance on those who offered them up to the waves.
Three lives within the towers are pulled to the fore of this Yekini, an earnest, mid-level rookie analyst; Tuoyo, an undersea mechanic mourning a tremendous loss; and Ngozi, an egotistical bureaucrat from the highest levels of governance. They will need to work together if there is to be any hope of a future that is worth living―for everyone.
I don't think I was quite in the right headspace for this, to catch all the details.
"The key is never to forget. Memory must be kept alive. It helps us understand our past, situate ourselves in the present, and position ourselves for the future."
This new novel by Suyi Davies Okungbowa was on my list to read even before we read David Mogo for hashtag SFFBookClub two months ago. Perhaps understandably, post-apocalyptic climate disaster fiction seems to strike a real chord these days. Compared to his debut novel, I enjoyed this more recent novella quite a bit more.
This story takes place set in a set of skyscrapers off the coast of what used to be Lagos, after the Atlantic Ocean has risen. Its three point of view characters come from different levels of this stratified society and quite literally cross class boundaries to investigate a disturbance that turns out to have much larger implications for their whole society.
If I had any complaints about this …
"The key is never to forget. Memory must be kept alive. It helps us understand our past, situate ourselves in the present, and position ourselves for the future."
This new novel by Suyi Davies Okungbowa was on my list to read even before we read David Mogo for hashtag SFFBookClub two months ago. Perhaps understandably, post-apocalyptic climate disaster fiction seems to strike a real chord these days. Compared to his debut novel, I enjoyed this more recent novella quite a bit more.
This story takes place set in a set of skyscrapers off the coast of what used to be Lagos, after the Atlantic Ocean has risen. Its three point of view characters come from different levels of this stratified society and quite literally cross class boundaries to investigate a disturbance that turns out to have much larger implications for their whole society.
If I had any complaints about this book is that its novella length doesn't give a lot of room for any of the characters or the world to truly stretch their legs. The story even fades to black right after the climax--although there's a satisfying echo of the opening dream, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions about the world and the future.
That said, I love the interstitial poetry and redacted historical reports between chapters that add such color to this world. They carried metaphorical heft in terms of layers of ark mythology, exploitative capitalism both historical and contemporary, and the power of memory and stories.
The rising seas setting and class divisions among our characters thrown together in emergency are richly thought out for this novella, but the plot turns could have used more room and reflection.
