(3.5/5 stars) When I saw that Shadow Speaker (originally released in 2007) was being re-released as a duology with [book:Like Thunder|198224509], I immediately requested the advanced copies. My first introduction to afrofuturism was through Okorafor's novella [book:Remote Control|34215764], and I love her writing style. In this duology, the majority of the story takes place in Nigeria in 2070. Following a nuclear war, "peace bombs" created a world where magic freely roams and doors open to other worlds. Ejii, the main character, is a shadow speaker, and when the shadows tell her she has to leave her home in order to prevent a war, she follows. Honestly this novella could have been a full length novel with more worldbuilding because I loved both post-war Earth and Ginen and would love to explore those worlds more. I'm already looking forward to the sequel to compare how much Okorafor's writing has evolved since this book debuted in 2007.

I wanted to love this more than I did but I was entertained and I'll be reading book two, I need to know how Ejii and Dikéogu's stories end.
Fascinating tales of a future wherein the main characters are African and Muslim.
You'll find friendships, talking animals, a badass warrior leader and her two husbands, vibrant descriptions and twists and turns and magical beings and creatures.

The world building isn't straight forward so you'll need to dive in and accept that you'll be confused as Ejii is explores as she embarks on this adventure.

Nnedi Okorafor has created another wonderful novel, one which, again, uses the mythology of Nigeria to create a future in which the mythology of the past combines with fantasy and climate awareness, along with a female teenage protagonist. If you enjoyed Binti, you need to read this book!

Ejii is a shadow speaker - a metahuman directly impacted by the Change, a wave of green power that spread over the world in the past. Being a shadow speaker means that her eyes appear different than most human eyes; it also means that shadows speak to her. This can manifest in many ways; in Ejii's case, her abilities let her speak to animals, and, as she matures, hear what the shadows themselves are saying. The child of a pair of tribal leaders - her father a past leader who abused his power, her mother a present leader - Ejii is ostracized for her powers but also elevated for her status as the child of her parents, but that elevation varies depending on which of her parents the speaker prefers. Drawn into a conflict with species from 4 other worlds that Earth can now connect with following the Change, Ejii has one chance to avert a war. A beautifully written novel that will appeal to readers of all ages.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

The Shadow Speaker is a fantasy book that follows Ejii who is fearless and smart and a child of a politician. She witnessed her father die but her father wasn't well liked and was also cruel. She is sad that her father was was killed because children do not inherently see the evil of their parents even. With her new abilities she decides to seek her father's killer. As a non-fantasy reader the book was interesting .


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I was quite excited to be given the opportunity to review both the revised version of "Shadow Speaker" and the sequel "Like Thunder," both by well-regarded authoer Nnedi Okorafor. These came in at the same time for me, and while I was tempted to review them as a single unit, it turns out that I've walked away with different impressions of each.
The described setting and genres (genre crossing? sharing? morphing? I don't know quite how to describe this as it blurs the lines a bit across fantasy, sci-fi, and it's own sort of dystopian) were intriguing to me, and I was excited to dive in.
"Shadow Speaker" was ... ok. Perhaps the fantasy thumb on the scale was a bit heavier than suits my taste? I'm not quite sure. I do know that I found it just engaging enough to finish, but that I didn't love it. Also, there were a few bits that probably should have been adjusted for the 2023 release, but remained anyway.
After reading "Shadow Speaker" I'm not sure I'd have chosen to read "Like Thunder" had I not received it as an ARC and felt compelled to at least give it a chance. I'm so glad I did though, as this sequel far outshines the first in the series, and is an excellent example of Okorafor's skills as a writer.
Final verdict: "Shadow Speaker" 3 stars, "Like Thunder" earns 4.

Shadow Speaker was originally released in 2007. This year the whole duology is being rereased. It is an interesting novel that is set in a post-apocalyptic world, taking place in Niger.

In the past a nuclear war and peace bombs created a world where magic was released over the world. Doors opened to other worlds and children got gifts. Our main character Ejii can talk to shadows and her friend can control the weather. When the shadows tell Ejii to follow Jaa, the leader of her town and the person that beheaded her father, she goes. Against the wishes of her mother because the shadows told her she'll make a difference in preventing the war.

There are a lot of really interesting things in this world. How this world came to be for instance. But also the opening of doors to the other worlds. A lot of things are seeping through in our own world. From talking cats to the guardians of the doors to the other worlds. The other world we actually visit has a problem with us because of the polution we bring. Their world is complete nature. There are so much great things to be find here.

But I didn't love it. I struggled to connect with the characters. I felt very far removed from them byt he writing, and as such it was hard to care if something happened to them. I missed some depth in places.

Even so, the world building in itself interests me enough to want to try the conclusion to this duology.

Shadow Speaker was originally published in 2007. It was re-released this past September with a sequel called Like Thunder that will be published in November 0f 2023.

This is my fifth read by Nnedi Okorafor. I have previously read the Binti series and Remote Control.
Similarly to her other works Okorafor explores heavy topics through the eyes of younger characters. In this case we have Ejii who is not only struggling with understanding the execution of her father, she is also learning more about her powers and the type of influence she wants to have on the world. I personally love stories with a quest element and talking animals. Shadow Speaker balances the fantastical and the real world implications of an impending war very well. My only qualm was the pacing. I can't wait to read the sequel when it comes out in November.

Summary:
It is 2070 on Earth. After a disastrous nuclear fallout humans find themselves surrounded with magic, technology, magical gateways, gods and metahumans. We follow Ejii Ugabe, a shadow speaker, who witnesses the execution of her tyranical father at an early age. Now at 14 she is embarking on a journey to another world called Ginen to prevent a war of the worlds.

Thank you to Netgalley and DAW for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the way Okorafor tells a story. It is a YA book with themes that can be heavy, and emotional. The world building is filled with science, magic, old rituals and fantasy elements, of which I do wish there was more world-building as it would enhance the experience.

I look forward to reading the second book as I believe it will round out points that felt sudden in overall pacing.

Thanks to NetGalley, Publisher, and Author for an ARC for my review.

No matter what the season or time of year, I will never say no to a new book from Nnedi Okorafor. Every since I read Who Fears Death and the Binti novella trilogy, I have devoured anything and everything she’s written. The Nsibidi Scripts series? Phenomenal. (If you’re looking for an alternative to a certain British magic school series, these are my first recommendation. IMO they’re far better.) Remote Control? Fabulous. Her Shuri and Black Panther comics? *chef’s kiss*.

You can thus well imagine my delight when I learned that she was releasing a new book at the end of September and it’s sequel in November. Surprised at the timeline? I was too, but I wasn’t going to complain. Then I discovered that this book I’m reviewing now, Shadow Speaker is actually a re-release of an out of print novel from 2007 that’s been expanded and a new introduction added. It explained some things, but you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, on to the review of another well done novel by my favorite Africanfuturist sci-fi/fantasy author, Nnedi Okorafor!

The Good Stuff
As noted in the intro, i am absolutely in love with Nnedi Okorafor’s worldbuilding, and Shadow Speaker does not disappoint (to put it mildy). Nnedi Okorafor has two primary ‘worlds’ that she writes in: the world of Lagoon, the Binti trilogy, and the graphic novel LeGuardia, and the Ginen universe. The latter includes the Nsibidi Scripts trilogy, Who Fears Death, Remote Control, The Book of Phoenix, and The Desert Magician Duology, of which Shadow Speaker is the first book.

The harmony between magic and science, the natural world and technology, plants and mechanics are what make the Ginen universe so special. Ejii, the protagonist of Shadow Speaker, can speak to the spirits and ‘hear’ other people’s moods, feelings and memories. Her traveling companion Dikéogu is a rainmaker, meaning he can control thunder and storms. Other characters can fly; there are animals that speak and know the future, smoke entities from parallel worlds, houses made from giant trees, and insects that create portals to other universes. Yet the magic feels deeply grounded in lived reality, which is one of Nnedi Okorafor’s fortes. She makes her world so vivid, so present, so real that it feels like if I were to travel to Niger, I would find epals (i.e., electronic tablets) made of plants and migrating birds that only carry women on their backs.

Another aspect of her work I deeply appreciate that Shadow Speaker embodies well is that she feels no need to explain the African religious or cultural references to her reader. I know I’m not her primary audience – I know very little about Nigerien cultural history, deities, folklore, or language. And I LOVE IT. She does not and should not have to explain these to me any more than Western scifi/fantasy feels the need to explain Greek mythology or the Roman Empire when it references them. If I want to understand her worldbuilding better, I have work to do, and that should be my work, not hers. I get utterly giddy when I look up a word or deity I don’t understand because it means that she’s able to be unabashedly herself in her writing, with no need to cater to a white Western reader. It’s goddam glorious.

Ejii, the protagonist, is a fascinating perspective character through which to tell this story, and one I wish we could see more of. Just how often have you read an SFF story with a dark-skinned, Muslim teenage girl who wears a hijab or veil most of the story? The way she navigates the complicated relationship with the woman who killed her father/would-be mentor was compelling, and the story had no qualms addressing the kind of patriarchal pressures such a young girl would face in that society while she’s attempting to find her own voice and power.

Will she choose violence and revenge or creation and connection? And what about Dikéogu, the boy whose family sold him as a slave because of his strange powers and now must learn to trust others or else risk losing the people he’s come to care about? You’ll have to read the book to find out!

Potential Drawbacks
When I first started reading the book, I noticed that it felt…off somehow. I finished the Nsibidi Scripts trilogy earlier this year, and I couldn’t help noticing that they felt fuller, the characters richer and more textured, the pacing more even. Then I learned that this was a re-release of a book from 2007, and it all made sense.

Shadow Speaker has moments where it feels like it was written by a younger writer, one whose style and depth hadn’t fully developed yet. Sometimes the characters react strongly for reasons that don’t entirely fit. Sometimes the pacing from one scene to another is not quite right. The character of the Desert Magician, for example, is one that shows up in other books like the Nsibidi Scripts series. In that series, his characterization differs in clear ways from this book, which threw me for a bit until I realized that the character evolved over time. The Desert Magician of Shadow Speaker is still ‘young’ in Okorafor’s development of his character, not quite as complex as later books she’s written, though fun in his own way. None of this dampened my enjoyment of the story overall, but it’s worth pointing out in case you, like me, come to the book expecting more of what current Nnedi Okorafor books offer.

The other drawback for me was the unfortunate characterization of the ultimate antagonist, Chief Ette. A mirror of Ejii’s own abusive father (who had been chief of her village of Kwamfa), Chief Ette is the same kind of patriarchal *sshole Ejii’s father was, but rather than handsome, physically fit, and charismatic, he’s described as physically the opposite: he’s grossly overweight. Much in the way of Baron Harkonnen in Dune, this is meant to depict him as a consuming force, a sign of excess and decadence. Though we do see into his memories to understand that he’s also sad and his overeating is a response to trauma in his childhood, it wasn’t nuanced enough to overcome the stereotype.

Perhaps we will get more nuance in the sequel? And, while I’m asking, maybe some positive fat representation? Pretty please? We definitely don’t have enough positive fat characters in SFF, and I’d love to see Nnedi Okorafor offer that kind of representation.

Final Score: 8/10
Overall, I enjoyed the book despite the inconsistencies in characterization and pacing and the unfortunate writing of the fat antagonist. Was it my favorite Nnedi Okorafor book? No, but that actually says more about how much better her other work is than it does about this book per se (at least for me). There’s so much I still really love about it that I still recommend it, especially for folks looking for compelling Africanfuturist SFF.

Her blend of mysticism with science and technology with plants is one of a kind, and her worldbuilding, drawn from African religion and culture (especially Niger), is breathtaking. Plus, there are bugs everywhere and honestly I think SFF could use more insects that aren’t killable bodies.

I am absolutely STOKED about the sequel; I cannot wait to see what she does in revisiting this story 16 years later. Given how much her writing has come into its own in those years, I can only imagine Like Thunder is going to be…electrifying!

Like Okorafor's other work, Shadow Speaker is an emersive world with powerful characters. The beginning of this book was so strong but there was a point that the plot fizzled out and I had to struggle to finish. You lose track of what the protagonist's purpose is with distracting world building that doesn't add to the story. Interesting, but I wanted more.

I think I would read anything this author writes - she is just fantastic. I never expected to like her books, but I kept seeing her on lists and finally gave in and read Binti and then just kept reading and here we are.

This book was just fantastic - set on Earth [in the not-so-distant future] and other places, it is the story of Ejii and her life as a Shadow Speaker, and all she goes through as she learns how to navigate the world as a special person that not everyone thinks belongs.

Brilliantly told, heartbreaking in spots, I had to MAKE myself stop reading every night to go to bed. I cannot wait to dive into the sequel and learn what happens to Ejii and her family. So well done!!!

**I cannot say enough about the narrator of this book as well. She is just fantastic and I would listen to her narrate just about anything. She is absolutely one of my all-time favorites.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nnedi Okorafor, Dele Ogundiran - Narrator, and DAW for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"The Shadow Speaker" weaves a captivating coming-of-age narrative that's all about empowerment. What truly makes this book shine is its vibrant array of characters. Okorafor-Mbachu crafts an enthralling cast, breathing life into each character, making them feel like old friends.

The portrayal of a future Nigeria is nothing short of intriguing, marrying highly imaginative world-building with modern Nigerian elements projected into a future setting. However, I must admit, that some of the imaginative elements occasionally tread the line of being a bit too eccentric for my personal taste. Additionally, the reasons behind these changes aren't always sufficiently explained or entirely convincing.

But despite these minor quibbles, "The Shadow Speaker" is a breath of fresh air in the realm of fantasy literature. It possesses a distinct allure that will enchant both teenage readers and adults alike. So, if you're in the mood for a story that embarks on a journey of empowerment and discovery in a fantastically unique world, this book is well worth a read.

Okorafor does it again. They always have the most wonderful ability to spin an emotional and immersive story. I definitely felt I could relate with the main character throughout the story. The narrator did a great job bringing life to the story and following the text well.

I have always enjoyed the way Okorafor tells a story through the eyes of the young. Even when the themes she lays out are heavy, experiencing them through children and young teens heightens the readers emotions and interactions with the plot and story.

Shadow Speaker is no different, a world filled with science, magic, old rituals and behaviours with a main character who struggles with a tyrannical father, hateful half-siblings, and her own abilities. Ejii goes on her walk-about and becomes instrumental in making the adults who are bent on war see that they can always choose another way.

I do wish there was more world-building as it could only have increased the immersiveness of the story, but with Ejii and Dikéogu at the centre, I still enjoyed reading this book.

I enjoyed the elements that I was able to identify from having read the short story from which this springs and being familiar with Okorafor's style. I cannot wait to continue this journey with Dikéogu.

Very unique and interesting worldbuilding and magic, but the pacing of the plot was off in many places. It felt like there was a lot of unnecessary things added. Very up and down when I was reading, especially the latter half of the book.

2 stars.

Whimsical, adventurous and inventive.

Fatphobia, ableism and possibly transphobic.

Ableism: Short person described as a mi*get. Pretty sure this word is a slur. Please correct me if I’m wrong but even google says it is.

Fatphobia: The villain is described as fat SO MANY times. I’ll let the quotes speak for themselves.

-‘He was the kind of fat that only came from eating more than a camel ate in a day. Ejii’s mother would have been disgusted. His body broadcast excess and greed’
-‘The type of man who had top bring others down to lift himself up, and he was a lot to lift’
-“Walking food machine”!
-‘Enormous girth’
-‘his soft exposed belly’
-‘Giant pig’, Bloated with fear’
-‘so… hungry, for power, food’
-‘he wants to consume all things’
-‘he is fat, unnatural’
-“crush you with half my weight”!

This language goes unchallenged. There were other ways to tell us this man was selfish. This book has been rewritten and it’s being published like this.

Transphobia: There is a creature that ‘can tell’ when a man dresses as a woman. Yet there is no care taken to say trans women and women in the text, which leaves the author's intent a mystery.

FInal Thoughts: Without all of this I was leaning towards 3 stars. Magic mixed with science seemed clunky and the pace felt jarring. The start was fantastic but it just kept going downhill from there. The ending was apparently rewritten in order for this to be a duology, which I also have the ARC for because I loved reading Binti. I was looking forward to reading more of Okorafo’s work; we'll see if that's still the case after book 2.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read a few stories by Nnedi Okorafor and liked every one of them. So I was really looking forward to "Shadow Speaker".

I don't know the original publication from about 15 years ago but what I read in this eBook lines up exactly with the amazing writing style and composition of stories that I already know and love.

I really liked the idea of speaking with shadows and how a Change got some people magical abilities. Also the fact of a human induced Change and the explanation for it is really interesting. At some points the information could have been distributed more evenly but it never seemed to much.

What I also love in Okorafors stories is that there are often young protagonists that hold the book together. I felt quite connected to Ejii and her friends. Her struggles and motivation felt real and her solutions to situations were unique.

I only felt once uncomfortable: As the big meeting at the end of the book came to be and we were introduced to Ette. He was the antagonist and fat. I feel it is a overused trope to make the antagonist fat and even his backstory didn't make it feel less offending for me as a fat person myself. So I have to give it less stars because it made me feel unwell.

Nethertheless I'm looking forward to reading the second installment.

Peace bombs. A phrase that only makes sense in the context of the future history of the world that leads to this story, as told by the chaotic trickster the Desert Magician about the coming of age of the titular Shadow Speaker, Ejii Ugabe, and her friend, the rainmaker Dikéogu Obidimkpa. It’s their story, but the Desert Magician is the one bringing it to us. Also messing with them and it at the same time.

The Desert Magician is not exactly a reliable narrator – but then trickster avatars seldom are. After all, the story is more fun for them if they get to mess with the protagonists a bit. More than a bit. As much as they want.

As Ejii describes the world in which she grew up, the Earth as it exists after the ‘Great Change’ brought about by those Peace Bombs, it’s not hard to think that the event was as much of a eucatastrophe as it was the regular kind. A whole lot of things seem to be better. More chaotic, but better. Certainly the climate has improved, even if entire forests sometimes spring up overnight, while the technology imported from other, more advanced worlds has made living with the remaining extremes considerably easier.

None of which means that humans are any better at all. Whatsoever. Because humans are gonna human. But it does mean that there are more possibilities, both in the sense of seemingly magical powers and animals, and in the sense of more opportunities for more people to rise above their circumstances – even if some people are still determined to fall into the traps laid by theirs.

Which leads the Desert Magician to Ejii’s story, and leads Ejii to Jaa, the great general who swept into Ejii’s village of Kwàmfà and struck off her father’s head with her sword, setting Jaa and Ejii on a collision course that will either save the world – or end it.

Shadow speaking, the ability to hear the voices of the spirits, is one of the many gifts that have arisen after the Great Change. Ejii is the shadow speaker of the title, and at fifteen is just coming into her power. A power that is telling her to follow Jaa to a great meeting of the leaders of the worlds that have merged into one interconnected system as a result of the change.

Jaa is going to the meeting to start a war in the hopes of preventing worse to come. Ejii has been tasked with finding a way to make peace. Neither task is going to be easy – and only one of them is right. The question is, which one?

Escape Rating A-: This version of Shadow Speaker is an expanded edition of one of the author’s out-of-print early novels. The original version of which, also titled Shadow Speaker, was a winner or finalist for several genre awards in the year it was published, as a young adult novel. Which it still both is and isn’t.

It is, on the one hand, aimed at a young adult audience because its protagonists are themselves in that age range, being merely fifteen when the story begins. As a consequence of their age, both Ejii and Dikéogu clearly still have a lot of growing up ahead of them in spite of the life-changing and even world-altering experiences that have led them to undertake this journey.

At the same time, Ejii at least is very much on the cusp of adulthood, and this is a journey that forces her to make adult decisions about, with no sense of hyperbole whatsoever, the state of the world. Howsomever, a good chunk of what she brings to those decisions has the flavor of the naivete of youth, particularly in the sense that the world SHOULD be fair, people SHOULD do the right thing, and that if only people would communicate honestly a peaceful solution SHOULD be within reach.

It’s not that she doesn’t know the world and the people in it are often stupid, self-centered, greedy and downright mean, it’s that she hasn’t yet been jaded enough by her experiences to truly believe that there can’t be a better way. Even though her personal experiences thus far in her life have seldom shown it to her.

Dikéogu is not nearly as mature as Ejii is. He whines a LOT. Not that his complaints aren’t justified, but it’s so very clear that he still has a lot of growing up to do and that expresses itself in a kind of ‘pity poor me’ whining that gets hard to take – particularly in audio as he’s voiced in a higher pitch to distinguish his speech from Ejii’s. Which works very well indeed as characterization while driving me personally nuts as I find high-pitched voices jarring. (I recognize this is a ‘me’ thing and may not be a ‘you’ thing, but if it is also a ‘you’ thing, you have been warned.)

While the Desert Magician is presenting this story, he’s not an omnipresent presenter. We see the story through Ejii’s perspective except at the very beginning and end. She is the person we follow, although the story is not told from inside her head. Rather, the story unfolds around her and her actions, and we only see what she sees and know what she knows and get as confused as she does at what she doesn’t.

Which means that while the narrator, Délé Ogundiran, does an excellent job of standing in as Ejii’s voice, that won’t be true for the second book in the duology, which will be Dikéogu’s story. Hopefully by the point in Dikéogu’s life when that story takes place, his voice will have dropped.

As much as Ejii comes of age and into her power through her riveting adventures in Shadow Speaker, her world and all the worlds that have become interconnected as a result of the ‘Great Merge’ that was part and parcel of Earth’s ‘Great Change’ also have a great deal of maturing to do – or at least negotiations towards that goal – as this first story ends. Whether the merged worlds will survive that change or destroy each other is part of the subsequent story in this duology that I’m really looking forward to seeing. Or hopefully hearing.

Dikéogu’s story may have started here but his true coming-of-age-and-into-power story, Like Thunder, is coming just after Thanksgiving. And I’ll be very grateful to read it – or hopefully have it read to me like Shadow Speaker – over the holidays.

We meet and follow Ejii, who lives in a city in what is now Nigeria. After a previous leader, Jaa, left town, Ejii’s father took over. He tried to reinstate older ways, including women having to stay covered, but not everyone loved his ways. When Jaa returned, she cut off his head.

Ejii is also a Shadow Speaker. She was not allowed to hone her craft – or even know what it was – until after her father’s death. So we, too, learn about these events and Ejii’s gifts as she recounts her history.

Now she is a teen, and her mom has been running things fairly smoothly until Jaa’s return. Jaa is interested in taking Ejii with her as an apprentice, but her mother forbids it. There is a part of Ejii that is scared of Jaa, but there is also a part that wants to go with her.

Of course, she ends up going. And this becomes a road trip narrative.

She meets up with Dikéogu, who has recently escaped from slavery. They are both traveling with animal companions who help them along the journey. Eventually, these four also meet up with Jaa and her entourage.

The entire group is heading to a different plane/world. Apparently there are five, but the veils between the worlds has eroded. Now people can pass freely between worlds. So, representatives from each of these are having a meeting to decide how to handle things.

Of course, the king of the world where the meeting is taking place does not like Earthlings, so things go awry pretty quickly. Will Ejii choose violence, like Jaa so often does? Or will she discover another way?

I was excited to read this to prepare for the upcoming sequel. I will be interested to see how Okorafor's writing has grown between the two as this did feel like an earlier work compared to some other works I've read by Okorafor which I found myself loving a bit more than this.