Noor

An enjoyable short novel (short novel - there's a novel delight in itself) about cyborgs, ecological disaster, and one of the most pervasive and long standing tropes in science fiction: the mysterious, evil, all-powerful corporation which covertly runs everything, all served to us in a Afrocentric, afro-futurist setting. The plot: AO was born with severe defects mitigated with cybernetic enhancements, even more enhanced after a later car crash, but she suffers extreme prejudice for being a cyborg, which culminates in her killing attackers and setting her on the run to the Red Eye, a desert vortex fatal to anyone not equipped with a force field (here, trendily referred to as an anti-aejej). I was delighted with this story out of my mind, some aspects, the plot and the tropes, channels your typical pulp stories you might pull out of 30s/40s American magazines, but on the other hand, it could also only be written now, in science fiction's current milieu. Another story in conversation with our past, good, bad, and reforming (redemptive?) in its gaze. And of course, the evil corporation sells everything and delivers through drones, ah, right wink wink nod nod. But, don't we just love this stuff. I do. This review was too fancy, this was one good fun story.