Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!
"Robin Miles's terrific narration creates a stellar audiobook. (Pun intended.)"—Modern Mrs. Darcy on Binti
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.
If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself — but first she has to make it there, alive.
PRAISE FOR BINTI
"With her rich, lyrical voice, narrator Robin Miles effortlessly moves among such emotions as anticipation, fear, resignation, and fortitude with just the slightest adjustments in breath. Her prodigious range elevates this short novella into a resonating performance that will linger long beyond its mere two-plus hours." - School Library Journal
"Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" — Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper
Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!
"Robin Miles's terrific narration creates a stellar audiobook. (Pun intended.)"—Modern Mrs. Darcy on Binti
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.
If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself — but first she has to make it there, alive.
PRAISE FOR BINTI
"With her rich, lyrical voice, narrator Robin Miles effortlessly moves among such emotions as anticipation, fear, resignation, and fortitude with just the slightest adjustments in breath. Her prodigious range elevates this short novella into a resonating performance that will linger long beyond its mere two-plus hours." - School Library Journal
"Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" — Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper
Critiques-
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September 7, 2015
Okorafor's sci-fi novella tackles sprawling ideas with little satisfactory resolution. Binti is a teenage girl from Earth, a member of the marginalized and disrespected Himba culture, and the first of her people to attend the prestigious Oomza University, located on a distant planet and home to the galaxy's finest academic minds. Midway through the voyage to the university, her ship is attacked without warning by Meduse warriors, and Binti must draw upon her unique strengths to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Okorafor draws from her rich knowledge of cultural warfare to craft nuanced commentary on how we mock "alien" peoples at our own peril; however, the plotting and characterization suffer from lack of authorial attention. Abstract concepts are introduced without warning and rarely defined to any satisfactory degree, while fascinating objects receive only the briefest descriptions, if any at all. For example, Binti's ship, a living being related to shrimp and the novella's primary setting, is never described from the outside and only vaguely on the inside. This overstuffed novella introduces too many concepts to process in a small space, muddying its otherwise laudable message. -
Starred review from March 1, 2016
Gr 9 Up-At 16, Binti embarks on an interplanetary voyage to Oomza Uni, the galaxy's supreme institution of higher learning. As the first of her people offered such an opportunity, she leaves home without even warning her family of her departure. When the vessel is attacked by the alien Meduse, Binti's only hope of survival is a pot of native clay-and her exceptional intelligence. Equal parts thriller, adventure, and quest, this work also serves as a timely parable about the power of educating girls. In spite of every possible obstacle, Binti is a girl determined to succeed, whose acute intellect will save her world. With her rich, lyrical voice, narrator Robin Miles effortlessly moves among such emotions as anticipation, fear, resignation, and fortitude with just the slightest adjustments in breath. Her prodigious range elevates this short novella into a resonating performance that will linger long beyond its mere two-plus hours. VERDICT For sci-fi groupies in need of a quick aural fix, Okorafor's latest educates, explicates, and, of course, entertains.-"Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC"Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Robin Miles narrates the story of a young woman who is the first of her people to be accepted as a student at prestigious Oomza University, located far across the galaxy. A slight sense of detachment filters into parts of Miles's narration, but she skillfully balances the expected coming-of-age story of a young woman leaving home with the unexpected survival story due to a violent attack en route to the university. The deep grief and anger Binti experiences as she struggles to stay alive are in sharp contrast to her earlier unbridled joy at learning. Miles adeptly pulls off this range of powerful emotions. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
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With distinctive accents and an engaging tone, Robin Miles continues the story of Binti, a Himba girl and mathematical genius who is the first of her people to attend the prestigious intergalactic Oomza University. After a year away, she is returning home, along with the flat-voiced Meduse jellyfish-like alien, Okwu, she befriended after she helped prevent tragic war with its people. Miles conveys Binti's anxiety, fear, intelligence, and curiosity as she learns how her ancestry will shape her future. The Binti novellas are perfect for listeners who love intricate world-building with elaborate technologies and diverse characters from across the galaxies, and Miles's lively narration is the ideal introduction. Start the journey with BINTI, and then continue the adventure with BINTI: HOME. E.E.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
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In the latest installment in Okorafor's immersive series, Binti must use all her skills and power as a Master Harmonizer to end the war between the Khoush and Meduse. Narrator Robin Miles's earnest tones and increasing urgency heighten Binti's journey, while her pacing and precision ground readers in the history essential to this series. Capturing the ferocity and intimacy of the story, Miles gracefully highlights difficult conversations and hard-won moments, illuminating the resilience and tenacity of the characters. Melding vivid imagery and inventive futuristic concepts, Okorafor constructs a narrative deeply rooted in concepts of home and selfhood and rife with creative technology and world building . This space opera of science and mathematics is completely unique and refreshing. K.S.B. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
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November 28, 2016
Okorafor picks up her interplanetary adventure story a year after the traumatic events of the Hugo-winning novella Binti. The titular heroine, Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib, is the lone human survivor of a massacre. The jellyfish-like Meduse attacked the living space vessel Third Fish while Binti and her fellow young adults were en route from Earth to the university on the planet Oomza. She now carries Meduse genetic material, which has changed her hair into tentacles, and her best friend at uni is the Meduse Okwu. When she feels a strong call to return to Earth, Okwu accompanies her as an ambassador of the Meduse. Binti hopes to engage in the traditional pilgrimage of the Himba, who live on the edge of the Namib Desert, to cleanse her outbreaks of anger. After traveling home in Third Fish, she finds the situation on Earth is complicated and her pilgrimage may not be possible. Strange happenings press her to choose her path into the future. Within a small space, Okorafor efficiently depicts several distinct cultures and portrays a strong and unusual heroine. A cliff-hanger ending promises more excitement to come. -
December 4, 2017
Okorafor’s lively, dramatic third and final Binti far-future science fantasy novella (after Binti: Home) finds Binti, the young protagonist, struggling to integrate new perceptions from the recently awakened alien technology in her body. This is an inheritance from her father’s tribe, the Enyi Zinariya, that allows her to communicate across long distances, view historical events at the sites where they happened, and experience other similarly disorienting things. Binti has always identified with her mother’s people, the Himba, who see her father’s folk as uncultured barbarians. The Himba, however, are in danger of being caught up in an outbreak of war between the human Khoush tribe and the jellyfish-like alien Meduse. Only Binti, who happens to be bonded to a Meduse in a hive-mind symbiosis, can possibly blend the cultures, technologies, viewpoints, and interests of all these groups and attempt to bring about a lasting peace. Incident follows incident
in a dizzying array, action is fraught with enough emotion for drama to become melodrama, and several key plot points are inadequately foreshadowed, but Binti’s powerful feelings of displacement, loss, grief, and joy make this entertaining narrative vivid, funny, and memorable.
