What an adventure!

I particularly enjoyed the unique world-building, the refreshing take on coming-of-age-stories and all the people you meet along the way.

I've read Nnedi Okorafor before and I love how she always eases the reader into the world they're about to explore. It was the same with Shadow Speaker. Nothing felt unusual or out of place because the lore is pretty solid from the start. The characters, the interior dialogue Ejii has with herself and the quick literary devices that introduce readers to the back story also helped keep the story coherent and I never felt like I was missing anything or that the author didn't let me in on an important piece.

A few of the additions and characters on Ejii's journey didn't quite fit into the story as a whole in my mind, but I was more than willing to look past them and was always curious to know what happens next.

I'm very much looking forward to read book 2!

A captivating story that immediately draws you in. About the young girl Ejii who decides to follow her path in life as a shadow speaker. Her biggest quest is to prevent a war between Earth and four other worlds, and by her side she has her friend Dikéogu, a storm bringer. Very entertaining!

It was so amazing to read Shadow Speaker after reading so many other books in the Nnediverse and to see the threads of connection amongst them all. There were so many references to legends and creatures that existed in the other stories and that truly attests to Nnedi Okorafor’s talent as a storyteller! Shadow Speaker is about a girl who finds her strength and voice despite coming from a past where she was expected to dim her light for others.She defies what is expected of her and convinces others there are more than just two solutions to any problem. I think that is where the Nnediverse truly shines because the heroes in these stories never relent to what should be, they find and create their own path forward. All this to say, this book is magical and bold and entices you to face your destiny despite the warnings and nay sayers.

Nnedi Okorafor is the GOAT and I will die on that hill. Shadow Speaker blew my mind. Every time I think I can't be be blown away my Okorafor writing they go and prove me wrong every damn time. I can't wait to see what comes next from Okorafor.

I was so happy to read this revised book since I am a HUGE Binti fan. I see these fantastical descriptors, but the plot is lost in the middle of this story. Honestly, I was not too fond of Dikéogu, which makes me hesitant to read the next book. If you read it, you know what I am saying is true. The beginning was solid, with Jaa and Ejii's mother kicking her out to pursue Jaa to prevent a war between worlds. I was so excited when she started to talk to the sand beasts and marked to be accepted, but it wasn't a thing the rest of the book, unfortunately. Overall it was good, but it had a lot of filler. I appreciate how much work Nnedi put into this world-building (plural).

This book opened me eyes to something new in the world of Sci fi. The characters were engrossing and the world was built up a ton in just the first one, I’m assuming there will be more of course. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

Summary
Eiji, daughter of the current village leader and the prior village leader killed by Jaa, an overarching leader, is also a shadow speaker whose powers are just coming in. The shadows have told her she must travel with Jaa if war is to be averted.
Review

There’s a lot of similarity between Shadow Speaker and the only other Okorafor book I’ve read: the Binti Trilogy. They’re both set in an alternate Africa, which is refreshing, but they also both have appealing characters, a hazy world, an unusual outlook, and some inconsistencies. In Shadow Speaker, a woman named Jaa is in charge of protagonist Eiji’s community, but it’s never really clear why or how, just that’s she’s forceful and has a history that everyone (save us) knows. Unlike Jaa, Eiji is a nonviolent pacifist, except when she (or Okorafor) forgets, which seems to be quite a bit of the time. The shadows she can speak to are mostly informative – except for key occasions when they act on their own, for no clear reason.

In truth, both quite a lot and not much really happen in the story. For quite a long time, Eiji is simply traveling to meet Jaa, and when they do meet, things are calm. Then there’s a sudden explosion of activity, which wraps up far too quickly and neatly for my taste. A few random encounters don’t feel they really have much role in the book and don’t add much – e.g., with the Desert Magician of the series title.

On the other hand, the Binti trilogy also read as if it should always have been published as one volume. Here, we have a duology (with a really quite bad in-story framing prologue), so perhaps Shadow Speaker‘s second half will give the overall story a more integrated feel. We do have an ending in this volume, but it feels more ‘to be continued’ than conclusion. The original, somewhat different version of Shadow Speaker was published in 2007, and it’s not clear to me whether that story was split in two for this duology, or the second half is something else – perhaps Zahrah the Windseeker (a term mentioned in this book), from 2005.

In any case, I enjoyed this despite its flaws, and expect to read the second half, if only for the unusual world and appealing characters.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

First of all, the cover for Shadow Speaker is stunning! It may be a bit of a typical cover, but it looks so powerful and futuristic with the font. I was immediately intrigued.

I loved finally reading a book in futuristic African fiction, and on top of that, it's fantasy. The book started off so strong, with a girl who has suffered a lot but isn't necessarily strong for those reasons as you would normally see. The world-building and the setting were incredibly strong.

Until the moment when we went on a journey with our main character. This is where unfortunately some confusion arose. The dangers of traveling were talked about very clearly, they were extensively described, and our main character discussed them with her friends. But later, she suddenly became extremely upset when she found out that she could die outside of her hometown? It didn't match what she already knew.

Some parts were a bit too minimalistic and could have used a few more pages. But not in a negative way, rather that I wanted more. More explanation would have been welcome, but it didn't detract from the overall experience.

My biggest issues with this book were towards the end. The powers of our main character fit a little too conveniently with what needed to happen for the plot. Very handy, but it took away some of the conviction of the dangers. But this is characteristic of soft magic systems. Furthermore, the leader of Ginen was a bit too much of a caricature rather than a well-developed character.

Nevertheless, I immensely enjoyed this book. Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for the review copy!

I understand that this is an early work by Okorafor, but it is a complete catastrophe. The fatphobia alone is enough for me to not want to read any of her books going forward--and I have been a fan of hers. It's unacceptable, especially in this "Deluxe, expanded edition," even if the protagonist feels that one fat man in particular is fat because he's been traumatized. The book itself is very messy and not very good--it demonstrates the origins, perhaps, of some of Okorafor's ever-present themes and ideas, as well as her desire to write about wrongs that are righted and how to live peacefully with nature. But it just doesn't work. Trying to explain magic with science is never a good ideas, and it doesn't make sense in this book. The characters are utterly flat, have no development, and are boring. They scream a lot and there's lots of lying and betrayal and the protagonist never learns anything from these lies and betrayals and mostly mindlessly follows around her hero, who is basically a fascist. It also doesn't know what audience it's for: YA readers, as it seems adjacent to her Zarah the Windseeker, which is for YA readers and excellent; or adult readers, for whom the massive amounts of violence and language like "camelshitting" as a deragatory adjective is fine. Why Okorafor wanted to re-release this book is beyond me.

I adore Nnedi Okorafor as an author. Her use of language, tone and everything just speaks to me in everything she writes. A true wordsmith, and also, I really enjoy that her stories – both fantasies and science-fictions – are set in different parts of Africa. It enriches the genres.

All of the above is also true for Shadow Speaker. I enjoyed the language and the tone and flow of it. But I didn’t connect to the story even though I tried. It is interesting, being set fifty years in the future, there fantastical technology and everything. I just wasn’t captured.

Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafator is one of her older novels that’s been reprinted. It’s set in a future Niger where the world has changed and magic has come to the fore, and Shadow Speaker Ejii travels to track down her father’s killer.

There’s plenty to like with imaginative world building in a future where nuclear war was nullified but a by- product is access to magic and other worlds, and it’s a coming of age story of sorts for Ejii. Though there’s quite a bit of familiarity coming through in the author’s books now - a young girl with special powers who hones them for good, accompanied by similar friends – has featured across quite a few I’ve read. Still a decent read though, but first written back in 2007 and I think the author’s writing’s improved since then.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor. Since many reviews will share the basic plotline, I would instead like to share my experience with the author's titles. Remote Control is the first title of hers that I read. It was excellent although I felt the ending was a bit rushed. The second book I read was Noor. This story was thrilling for me. The science concepts and the environment were new and fresh and the story very well written. When I was finished reading, I felt I had a bit of an understanding of the agrarian lifestyle of the nomads of northern Nigeria.
Okorafor's newest novel, Shadow Speaker, is her best yet. It is not as unique a storyline as Noor, but it is beautifully written and I loved this story.

3.5 the world and characters are very interesting but I just always wanted more, more details, more development. I felt like was always surprised by things the characters did because the development leading up to their actions was so sparse. That said it is a classic coming of age story in which the girl has to leave home to become the woman she is meant to be. I enjoyed the friends she made along the way.