Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor: Stories are Like Gods

The hardcover edition of Nnedi Okorafor's new exhilaratingly original novel, Death of the Author, includes a tagline at the top that says "The future of storytelling is here." I'd already been planning to read this book after reading a great review in the Chicago Review of Books, but the first time I saw that tagline, I thought, "hmm, okay, so some publishing marketing person has gotten a little out of their skis here. But fine." Turns out that line is a really funny and terrifically clever inside joke which you only get when you to the very end of this book. 

And read this book, you should! It's as inventive and fun as storytelling gets. It's really three stories in one. We have the main story about Zelu, at rock bottom of her writing career and fired from her adjunct professor job, who then pens a majestically successful sci-fi novel titled Rusted Robots. The second story is the text of Rusted Robots itself. And the third includes interviews with friends and family of Zelu giving important context to Zelu's life and career.

Regarding that last part, one of the themes of this novel is how we should rise above expectations or even limitations imposed upon us by family and friends who may think they have our best interest at heart, but maybe don't. Zelu's ever increasingly "crazy" ideas (though they don't seem to crazy to her), like volunteering for an MIT engineer's experiment to fit her crippled legs with exoskeletons so she can walk again, grate on her family who think she's just doing things, like writing bestselling novels, for attention. But this is her life! These are her decisions, and no one else's! 

All the while, we get segments of Rusted Robots, a story about a post-human apocalyptic class of robots called Humes who are in a war of survival with a cadre of sentient AIs called Ghosts. Except an unexpected thing happens: A Hume named Ankara falls in love or at least like or maybe just a symbiotic relationship with an AI name Ijele. Expectations subverted again!

Of course, telling a story with another story (soooo meta) isn't itself original. But how all three pieces of this novel converse with each really is so smart. Yes, it's a novel (that subverts expectations) about subverting expectations, but it's also about the origins of stories and the power of storytelling, which I'm always here for. A few quotes from the novel: 

"Stories contain our existence; they are like gods. And the fact that we create them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving — they remind me what’s great about being alive."

And, cogent perhaps to today's moment: "What better time to listen to a story than when the world is about to end?" 

I'd been looking for an onramp to read Okorafor for a while. She's a hugely popular writer with rabid fans. This is it! I highly recommend this as something to jolt you out of a reading slump or just if you need something new and different.