It doesn't necessarily have to, but science-fiction can present us with new ways of viewing who we are as people and as a society right now, how we confront genuine issues that are around us today, how we respond to changes and consider where that might take us in the future. Traditionally, that often that involves our relationship with technology, a reality that seems to be becoming more science-fiction-like every day. There are many innovative ways of exploring that subject and, as a black writer writing about a family of Nigerian origin, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor definitely takes an interesting and unusual approach to those themes in Death of the Author.
What is really unusual in her approach to SF is that the futuristic science-fiction appears a side issue to the main story set in a more familiar reality only slightly more advanced than the present day. That's a style more often employed in the genre of fantasy, where they want to keep one foot in reality while the world on the other side of the door is one where magic exists. Here the science-fiction is merely a story presented in-between that has been written by one of the main characters who is an author. I say “merely” but obviously it's not that simple and there is evidently more connecting the two parts of the novel.

The main character is Zelu, 32 years old and paraplegic after a childhood accident, lecturing in creative writing as an adjunct at a university. Things aren't going well. She's just been fired for being a little too honest about the pretentious work of one of her students and other complaints have been made about her “attitude problem”. To top it all off, she has just received the 10th rejection letter for her novel. With money running out, Zela is forced to return to live with her parents while she takes a new direction and starts writing a science-fiction story about robots. To her great surprise, her science-fiction novel is a worldwide success and it propels Zelu into international fame and a world she is not quite ready to embrace.

The story she writes is called 'Rusted Robots'. It's set in a post-human world occupied by humanoid robots called Humes, NoBody AIs and various other self-building and replicating mechanical intelligences. One Hume, Ankara, is interested in the human preoccupation of stories, of writing stories, of telling and sharing stories. Ankara travels to learn and collect them, but the world is still a far from peaceful place and Ankara has been tasked with delivering a message to other Humes that the world is facing complete and final annihilation. The other Humes, constantly under attack from no-body ghost AIs, are more concerned with this immediate threat than the one that Ankara has to deliver.

There's an intentional ambiguity in Death of the Author, and maybe even a meta-level aspect of author Nnedi Okorafor's brush with success and acclaim. Even the title plays on a certain ambiguity, the 'death of the author' suggesting perhaps the literal death of the author - she certainly lives a reckless lifestyle - but it also refers to the author needing to remove themselves from their work, to let the novel speak to the reader, allow them to relate personally to a work without prejudice of who the author might be or what they think might be their intentions for the work. As Zelu's personal life becomes even more filled with incident than the novel she has written and even rivals it for its leap into science-fictional realms, the gap between the two parts of the novel narrows and correspondences and correlation between them grow in intriguing ways.

I need hardly say that despite attempting to accept “the death of the author”, there is a relationship between Zelu’s life and the one she feels compelled to write about, but it's not one that you can reduce down to simple parallels, particularly since Zelu’s life, her family history, their Nigerian origins and its tribe mentality are very complicated. It's no easy matter for anyone, least of all Zelu herself (or indeed the reader) to unpick the cultural, the personal, the inherited traits, how much she lives up to them or how much she kicks against them. She's certainly determined to retain her independence, her fighting spirit, to be the person she wants to be, not what others have determined for her, but being wheelchair-bound restricts her to a large extent, or has such restrictions placed on her by how society functions.

“Humankind was done. It was officially the age of automation”, Ankara observes as the last human dies. 'Rusted Robots' is clearly a reflection of the world the troubled author dreams of, the eradication of humanity, a binary world where we can fix our flaws or accept them as being distinguishing features, where we can build and improve on what we are. The problem of course with inserting chapters from a million dollar bestseller written by one of the characters into a book is that it needs to read like a multi-million dollar idea that captures the imagination of the world. Inevitably, it's hard to see Zelu’s 'Rusting Robots' in that light. Most authors would avoid that challenge and just provide a summary of what the book is about rather than actually try to write it, but the intention is perhaps not to convince that this is a SF masterpiece, but that it is needed to play a different, necessary role.

As a plot device I'm not convinced that 'Rusted Robots' works as a miraculous science-fiction story that catapults Zelu to global fame, and it's even hard to see it as a necessary or worthwhile addition to the book. The family story and Zelu’s own backstory is good enough, the technological advances in her own world presenting opportunities and dangers, the various relationships compelling in their complexity, those complications weaved through with first person perspectives from people close to Zelu. But even if you can't put your finger on exactly what function the inclusion of the text of 'Rusted Robots' provides or how exactly it relates to the 'real world', it does provide a necessary resonance with the inner life of Zelu that feeds into the whole wonderful richness of this extraordinary book. As involved and convoluted as it all might seem, the underlying sentiment of the book can be a simple one; let go of all the complicating factors, stop beating yourself up, don't worry what everyone else thinks about you, embrace the changes. Keep living your life.

I don't like not finishing ARCs but in this case I just can't continue with it. The writing is not for me at all. I don't think that this is a bad book, I just went into it with the wrong idea. It reads a lot like literary fiction rather than scifi and because apparently I'm really struggling with reading lately I'm DNFing this for the time being.

Description:
Zelu thinks she’s hit rock bottom, but then she writes a sci-fi novel that takes the world by storm. Her newfound fame gives her a bunch of opportunities and her life starts to get increasingly exciting. Chapters about Zelu’s life are interspersed with chapters from her universally beloved sci-fi novel.

Liked:
Really enjoyed the descriptions of the exos and what they did and didn’t do for Zelu. I thought her relationship with Msizi was complex, believable, and fairly endearing (although sometimes frustrating). The food descriptions were incredible and I really felt Zelu’s hunger. I liked Tolu and a handful of the other interesting, cameo-type appearances of a bunch of the people in Zelu’s life.

Disliked:
Zelu is frequently insufferable and her family are The Worst. I really didn’t buy that her siblings would all be so supportive and interested in each other but absolutely ignore Zelu’s success and shoot her down at every opportunity. Zelu is strong-willed and often very childish in her behaviour - which was frequently irritating - but most of the decisions she makes about her own life are absolutely understandable. I did really like the moment with her mother towards the end where they both have the chance to explain their behaviour just a tad, though. I wasn’t at all invested in the sci-fi story (and I *love* sci-fi). Bold move to spend half the book talking about how much the world adores a story you’ve also written as part of the book… is this manifestation? 🦋

Despite that little rant, I would recommend. I was rooting for Zelu once I got used to her frequent tantrums, and the ending pulled things together neatly enough that the whole thing felt fairly satisfying.

I wanted to stretch myself but coming to the Sci-fi sections I just couldn’t really continue, it’s a genre I can’t always push myself through.
A challenging novel, a unique idea.

I feel like this will be a marmite book- people will either love or hate it. I'm a little more conflicted.
First of all, I'll start with what I really liked. The protagonist Zelu was brilliant. I loved how flawed and human she was, it was such an honest, personal portrayal (particularly concerning cultural identity) and all of her decisions made complete sense with her character. Most of the other characters also shared this: they felt real and human and complex and, because of this, often not particularly likeable.
I also really enjoyed the 'slightly futuristic' world. The story was clearly set in a time where technology has developed, but in a very believable way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our world looks like it in 10 or 20 years time. It was obvious that a lot of thought had gone into it and it really worked.
The Rusted Robots storyline was the highlight of the book for me- I almost just wanted to read a whole book of just Ankara and Ijele! It's definitely told me I need to read more Africanfuturism stories because the atmosphere and story was really beautiful. The links between this world and the 'reality' (or was it reality?) were also really clever.
I will say I was a bit confused by the direction of the book for some time. There's excellent critique of the publishing industry and how it treats its authors, but some of it didn't really go anywhere. I think the more literary aspects of the story just didn't suit my typical reading and didn't fit with what I expected from the story going in, which is a me problem rather than a book problem! I also feel like I'm missing a little something from the ending. It was really well done and well crafted, but I wanted just a little bit more and I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied with Zelu's story- what happens next?
So, a really clever and intricately crafted read. It's compelling and human, though a little bit messy and I wasn't satisfied enough by the ending to really enjoy it. However, anyone wanting an original, unique and diverse mixture of literary and science fiction with compelling characters should look out for this one when it's released! I can definitely see it becoming some people's new favourite.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. This was not a typical sci-fi book but one well worth reading. It has three distinct narratives, one of the author herself, interviews with various people in her life, and a story about robots. I also liked learning about Nigerian cultures. I think the only thing stopping this from being a 5* read for me is that the ending did not feel 100% satisfying and that at certain points the real world aspects became somewhat repetitive. However, I still highly recommend this.

This was quite an interesting book and I find that Okarafor is quite an inventive writer. Enjoyed this one.

This was an amazing concept with such interestingly flawed characters. Whilst it wasn't what I expected, it was still great.

A unique concept, brilliant cover, good representation. I did like it, but I didn't connect enough to feel any stronger than that. Thank you for my copy!

In Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor, a woman wrestling with her own sense of self in a family that doesn’t quite accept her as she is writes a best selling sci-fi novel – and begins to become a part of her own science fiction story as technology starts to intersect with her life. It has complex characters, raw emotion, and plays with narrative subtly, making it a hard thing to pin down.


In Death of the Author, we are introduced to the protagonist, Zelu, by way of an interview. This is a pattern that introduces every major shift in Zelu’s life with an interview from a different person close to her in some way. What’s interesting is that the first interview is with Zelu’s older sister Chinyere, who is frequently Zelu’s biggest detractor in the family, quick to scold her for not conforming to the behaviours they’d expect. And Zelu is certainly non-conformist. We meet her at a low point – her challenging literary novel isn’t selling, she’s just been fired from her teaching job, and her familial relationships are strained, often because they refuse to see past her disability. Zelu lost the ability to walk as a pre-teen in an accident falling from a tree – and most members of her wider Nigerian family see her at fault, now a burden on the rest of them – and while this isn’t the express view of her immediate family, they certainly seem to have internalised it, with Zelu internalising it most of all to form an inner self-hatred that seethes at her core.

Even when she writes a bestselling sci-fi novel in a fit of inspiration borne from her tumultuous experiences at her younger sister’s wedding, they, and she most of all, still find the negatives in everything. It can be hard to read at times, the way Zelu is treated by her family, her inability to open up and tell them how she really feels, the way she pushes away the person she can trust. But that rawness feeds into a reality, one that brings forth both the great and terrible aspects of being Nigerian diaspora in America, specifically one of Igbo and Yoruba descent. And with that comes a near future, one with self driving cars, artificially intelligent phone apps that curate content (for good and ill) and even more significant technological leaps. The intersection between her career, her disability, her cultures and technology feels like the core to this novel. Social media becomes a curse for her, like with many authors who write a bestseller and start attracting haters.

And the throughline of the novel is a different novel altogether, ostensibly the one she writes – Rusted Robots. In this story, a human bodied ai named Ankara in Nigeria who searches for and collects human stories. She soon discovers a terrible fate is soon to befall an almost humanless earth, but then gets caught in the middle in a conflict between the no-bodies, ai that mostly shun physical form and hate humanity, and the humes, robots who inhabit only one human body and seek to preserve the best of humanity. It’s fascinating how this story reflects the primary narrative and vice versa, and as choices Zelu makes reflect those in her novel, it leaves you wondering about how the story affected her and how she built the story.

The book feels to me very much a character study, and in that respect it’s a strong one. Zelu is prickly, flawed, traumatised and deeply compelling. Seeing her slowly figure out herself is both agonising in the falls she has to make along the way, and gratifying in how realistic those gains are. But, as the interviews throughout the book hint at, the plot is building to something, some event that involves Zelu making a choice that not everyone agrees with, that is implied to be surprising if not for the fact that it is Zelu doing it. Elements of that ending felt rushed to me, and I’m still digesting the conclusion to the Rusted Robots story which recontextualises most of what came before.

Death of the Author builds gently up to the more sci-fi elements (not counting the fully sci-fi robot story within the story) which may frustrate genre readers who like things more overt – but there’s a deftness with which Okorafor builds Zelu and the characters around her that I think this book is definitely worth reading, especially if you prefer sff with a more literary feel.

Rating: 8/10

With thanks to Gollancz and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC!

What an incredible read. This book is compelling and had me hooked from the first few chapters. This book is fully of messy flawed characters that are so utterly human.

I loved Zelu. I am disabled, and a lot of Zelu’s frustration with her family rang true for me. The words were so real and raw that there were moments when I had to step away for a moment. There are entire scenes where I held my breath, eager to see what Zelu would do next. Her determination leapt off the page.

And of course, that ending. So clever, and made me pause to rethink the entire book. I loved it so much.

I’m going to be talking about this one for a while, and picking up the rest of the author’s books.

It's a rare thing when you end a book and you feel the urge to start all over again because the second read will be totally different, as you know how it ended.

Death of the Author is that kinda book. Nnedi Okorafor did it again. She mixes African Futurism (I hope this is the right term) with sci-fi and mind blowing plots, while at the core showing us humanity and connection in all its beauty.

On top of that, it's a book within a book, and it's a piece on publishing industry and marketing. Something I really love.

I encourage you to definitely read to the end, as only then will you know how everything connects. And it connects in ways that are truly mind blowing.

5/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @orionbooks @gollancz for the eARC!

#DeathOfTheAuthor #Netgalley #Bookstagram

Unfortunately this is one of those times that the writing style just didn't personally work for me. The concept was really cool and the characters seemed very interesting. But I found myself constantly rereading sentences because the way this was written just really confused me.

I tried this from 26/11/24 to 29/11/24. DNF at 26%. This was absolutely fine but I just didn’t connect to it. Zelu has a very strong narrative voice and I appreciated the Nigerian influences in this but I’m just not interested enough to continue. It was just boring to me and I’ve not had the best look with this author before so it’s definitely a me problem. This does seem fresh though and seems to be unique. Plus I appreciate the disability representation.