Monday, April 5, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ikenga by Nnedi Okorafor

 




Ikenga is a middle-grade novel written by SF/F author Nnedi Okorafor, known for some of her great adult fiction (Who Fears Death, Lagoon, The Book of Phoenix, Binti) and her YA fiction (Akata Witch/Warrior), much of which is based on West African culture and myth.  Ikenga is advertised as her first middle-grade novel (I'd argue the Akata series also fits that age group), and is definitely a more child-friendly story, featuring a boy in a town in Nigeria who loves comic books and who gains the power to transform into a shadowy Hulk like being.  It's a very short novel and so I picked it up in audiobook in a week where I knew I'd have less time to listen in the car.  

And well....Ikenga is fine for middle grade audiences, highly enjoyable in its Nigerian spin on tales that will be familiar to American comics readers (sort of a combination of Shazam, Batman, and the Hulk) until the story's final act, where it kind of fizzles out.  The story for the most part feels very aimed at the younger span of middle-grade audiences, at least again for the first 2/3, when it tries seemingly to bring in more complicated topics in the final act.  But while the whole package might still be enjoyable for the younger audiences its aimed at, flaws or no, this is not one of those middle grade or young adult books that adults will find that worthwhile in the end. 

Note: I read this in audiobook, and the reader is very good.  Not sure how much kids in this age group listen to audiobooks, but if they do, it's a solid choice of format to read the book in.  

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Nnamdi's father was the hope of Kalaria - a town/small-city in Nigeria bereft by crime and corruption, with a colorful band of criminals and dirty cops ruining people's lives every day.  But as the Chief of Police, Nnamdi's father seemed ready and able to take them on, including the criminals' notorious leader, the Chief of Chiefs.  

But then he was shot and murdered, leaving Kalaria, and 12 year old Nnamdi and his mother, all alone.

But during a 1 year anniversary of his death, Nnamdi follows a strange man into darkness and finds the spirit of his father, who gifts him with an Ikenga....which seems to transform him into a giant shadowy Man with incredible strength and tremendous rage.  As the Man, Nnamdi soon finds he can stop the criminals and possibly avenge his father's death, but with the transformations guided by rage, can he stop himself from going out of control with his new power?
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Ikenga is a story that will feel familiar to those familiar with American comics, which are referenced throughout (our hero is a comics fan).  Like the Hulk, Nnamdi turns into a giant with super strength who has anger issues that result in him losing control and potentially doing more damage than he'd ever want when clear headed (although he never kills!).  Like Shazam/Captain-Marvel, he's a child who turns into an adult to fight crime as his super identity.  Like Batman, he lives in a city/town with a corrupt bribe-filled police department, where citizens live in fear of a number of colorful criminals with names based upon their own gimmicks and like Batman, his crimefighting is inspired by the death of his father.  But at the same time, as with most of Okorafor's work, it is also a very African inspired work, from the source of Nnamdi's power (the Ikenga), to the types of the criminals involved and their methods (carjacking, pickpocketing using smoke/smell bombs, stealing from cars using magical juju).  

And this works really well, especially through the first three quarters of the book.  Nnamdi is a very relatable and enjoyable character, as the boy who is scared but desperate to find some way to make things better like his father did, and his relationship with his best friend Chioma, a girl from his school, is really well done - as with classic comic-hero stories, he first tries to hide his powers from her, then he tells her and she doesn't believe him, and then she begins to help him take on crime.  The themes of dealing with one's rage and controlling one's strength, and trying to think before judging and taking wrong actions, are well done, and the confrontations with each of the villains - first Three Days' Journey (named for the 3 day trip he takes every car he carjacks) then Bad Market (who pickpockets people in the market then unleashes a stink bomb in it to show he'd been there) and then Mama Go-Slow (who blocks traffic and then steals things out of cares, possibly with the help of her own magic) - are all really fun and well done.  

It's a shame then that the book kind of loses steam in the final act.  The story builds to a confrontation with the Chief of Chiefs, the head of the criminals, quite clearly, and one expects him to have similar magical powers (as one of the criminals, Mama Go-Slow, seems to possess).  Instead...the story takes a twist and that confrontation is entirely verbal and not the final one in the book, with the story shifting instead from a battle against crime in general to discovering Nnamdi's father's murderer...except neither of the two remaining suspects are really anywhere near as built up or as inspiring as the Chief of Chiefs.  The book essentially tries to really focus on both its theme of control and calm over anger and violence as the solution and to add a theme of corruption not being something that can be stopped by simple force and black and white justice, and I don't really think the parts preceding the twist worked well enough to setup those themes...it's like the age group of the book leaped two years in the final act except the final act is so short that it can't quit pull it off.  

The result is a fun middle-grade book for sure, that I'm sure kids will enjoy, but offers very little for older readers, and wouldn't even be necessarily my first choice for kids of that age.  The book offers the potential for a sequel, so this may not be the end of the world of Ikenga, but it's definitely the end of my continuing with this world.  

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