Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Familiar and New Sci Fi

Binti: the Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

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I have a bit of a confession to make: I assigned my students a novella that I hadn’t read the conclusion of. This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. Binti is a trilogy, and I’d read the first installment, assigned it, started the full trilogy, put it down, forgot about it, then picked it back up with about 2 weeks left in the semester. Here follows a review of the full trilogy. Reasons I picked this for an intro to lit/composition 2 type class: […]

A pox on novella cliffhangers!

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

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I listened to the first Binti story as an audio book without knowing that it wasn’t a full-length book, and then had looooots of road trip left when it was done. So I was prepared this time, but it still ended very abruptly and left me in the lurch! I like Binti a lot, though, and I am very interested to see how she gets out of this latest cliffhanger. Binti and her jellyfish alien friend Okwu have completed their first year at university, and […]

Interesting ideas but needed more space to grow

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

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Binti is a novella starting a series about a young woman leaving her home in Africa to travel to a distant world – Oomza University. She is the first of her people – the Himba – to leave their homelands but she is an incredibly gifted harmoniser who even as a teenager is capable of building complex instruments called astrolabes. Basically she is gifted at the complex and advanced mathematics that are used to propel this future society. The book introduces intriguing concepts such as […]

Angry Space Jellyfish

Binti by nnedi Okorafor

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I hated the first thing I got from a list of must-read sci-fi/fantasy series; I was not optimistic about the second. Thankfully, this one turned out well. The only problem? Binti is actually a novella, and way too short. I somehow ended up with a copy of the first novella, not the series of three bound together. The premise reminds me in some ways of Black Panther. Binti is a Shuri-like math prodigy from an isolated culture who sticks largely to old ways of living […]

Not flawless, but Binti and Katniss could totally hang

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Usually when I review a book that’s already been covered on CBR multiple times, I try not to read anybody else’s reviews until mine is written. This time, however, I read everything the search function could find for me. I remembered from headlines that some people loved this Hugo/Nebula-winning book, and some people did not. I listened to the audio version on my way to Thanksgiving, and enjoyed it, so was curious what others thought. I think the audio version may have helped, having Binti […]

Not what I was expecting

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Spoiler warning! In my explanation of what worked and didn’t for me in this story, I will be going into plot specific details. If you want to approach this story completely unspoiled, you may just want to read the first few paragraphs. Binti is the first of her people, the Himba, to be offered a place at the Oomza University, the finest in the galaxy. She pretty much runs away, knowing that her decision to take her place at the university might mean she is no […]



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