Book Review: The Night Masquerade (Binti #3) by Nnedi Okorafor

The Night Masquerade (Binti #3) by Nnedi Okorafor

Paperback, 208 pages

Published January 16th 2018 by Tor.com

Nnedi Okorafor is one of the best and strongest voices working in Science Fiction today. Her story telling skill is top notch that perfectly balances world building,characters and plotting, all those elements are woven through her work with great attention to detail. She writes African themed Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy and Magical Realism for both adults and YA readers. I am excited to finally read the third and final book in the Binti trilogy. This series is Afrofuturistic sotra space opera slightly with some elements of hard sci-fi. Together the three books could function as one book and those of you coming to the story now are lucky you can read it that way. I suspect it will be a better experience done all at once.

The world building is certainly the strongest aspect of all three Binti books but the Characters are given strength and moments to shine. This series is a great place for readers to go if they saw Black Panther and wanted more African themed speculative fiction. Binti is a very African science fiction tale and for that alone it is a neat and pretty singular experience. How many Sci-fi stories can say that in the Twentieth Century.

The story of Binti is told first person through her eyes. She leaves her native Africa for a university on another world. Deeply spiritually minded Binti paints her skin with the red soil of her homeland to remain connected. Shortly after leaving earth she is the lone human survivor of an attack on the living starship she is a passenger on. She is able to survive thanks to melding with a member of attacking species known as Medusa. Suddenly her long dredlocks come to life with Alien DNA and she ressurected as a hybrid.

In book two she returns to earth and book three resolves that conflict. The ending was not one I expected and comes with a powerful twist. To pull off that twist the narrative that to leave the first person narrative for a few chapters. This could have been jarring but it worked well.

I know this is a short review but these books are also short. That said they are overflowing with ideas and are some of the best sci-fi of this century so far.