Remote Control - Nnedi Okorafor

She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.

Nnedi Okorafor is a name I have seen many, many times. I follow her on Twitter and love to see her posts about colorful insects and the fact that she writes Africanfuturism, not Afrofuturism (there is a difference, people). But I had never read any of her work until recently, reading the first book in the Binti trilogy (I bought the trilogy and will be reading it very soon). I also listened to Levar Burton read her short story The Baboon War on his podcast, Levar Burton Reads, which was incredible.

In her latest book, Remote Control, the author writes about loss and technology, two things you wouldn’t think could be related to each other, but she made it happen. The book follows a young girl named Sankofa, a child who is forever changed by an alien artifact that fell from the sky during a meteor shower. Sankofa becomes the “Daughter of Death” after she causes a catastrophe of unimaginable proportion.

Remote Control is a novella you can read in one sitting, but the story is complete and heartbreaking. Sankofa is so very young and forced to wander alone, save the company of a fox, trying to find the thing that changed her life. Because I have such a vivid imagination, it was easy to see this young girl, her loneliness and her sorrow. To see the fear she instilled in adults and the care very few gave to her. The author seamlessly changed Sankofa’s world in the blink of an eye and it rendered me almost speechless. I wanted her to have a happy ending. You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out if she does.

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Nnedi Okorafor, author of Remote Control.

For more information about the author, visit her website. Photo courtesy of Cheetah Witch.