This book is another home run for Okorafor. I am not a sci-fi person at all, but I can not get enough of her books. It’s immersive and she has a way of pulling you immersive into the story without needing a lot of world building at the beginning. The narration is impeccable and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I generally enjoy Nnedi Okorafor's book, but I ended up DNFing this one at 18%. There wasn't anything horrible about it, but I was incredibly bored. It felt like it was taking forever and I didn't care about the characters or the world. The writing seemed so chopped up with short sentences that repeated everyone's name all the time.

I may pick up this series to give it another try, but right now this wasn't the book for me.

I've heard nothing but good things about Nnedi Okorafor's books and was so excited for this one. I was struggling to stay engaged with this one - I couldn't find a speed that suited me along with the speed of the narrator, so I had to go slightly too fast and let it get ahead f me as otherwise it was too slow and I'd have completely turned off. This meant I wasn't really keeping up and not fully invested. I had debated just dnf'ing and accepting it wasn't for me, but I was still interested in where it would go.. however I wish I had stopped.

In the last 20% we are introduced to an evil chief who I don't think was referred to without mention of his fatness - going so far as to say his fatness isn't normal but a literal sign of how evil he is. It also got dangerously close to ableism with my liking when we're first introduced to him and Ejii says he's so fat he can't walk.
At one point there is a casual mention of him clenching his fists and it's written as "his fat fist". There is simply no need for it.
It made me, a fat disabled person, feel really uncomfortable and honestly a bit angry.

I can absolutely accept characters having problematic thoughts, but this was purely used to evidence how evil this man was. I saw nothing in Ejii to suggest she would be fatphobic and it wasn't used to better her character.
There was also a comment in regards to creatures knowing if the person riding them is a man or a woman even if they've dressed as the other which I would have worded better as with it being a throwaway comment, it does risk veering close to being transphobic.

I realise this was originally published in 2007, but I'd have thought one of the benefits of reworking and republishing a book so many years later is that you can change theses sorts of things. I guess not - though I'm not sure what the point would be in reworking it otherwise.
It does make me hesitant to pick up the sequel or more of this author's work as if they didn't feel they needed to change this now, I don't really want to risk reading more fatphobic content, which is a shame given how many good things I've heard and how great the plots sound.

SHADOW SPEAKER by @nnediokorafor isis an atmospheric post-apocalyptic fantasy steeped in magic and set in a near future (2074) Niger. Ejii is one of "the changed" - humans that have been mutated due to "The Great Change" where "peace bombs" full of bioengineered diseases were dropped throughout the world culminating in a grand earthquake. As a Shadow Speaker, Ejii is able to see well in both the light and the dark as well as communicate with whispering shadows. She is compelled to be a traveler as she comes of age in which she will be "courting death or greatness." The shadows divulge to Ejii that a great danger is upon earth in the form of other planes of existence colliding into us and they have told Ejii she must reluctantly apprentice to the queen to save her plane of existence.

Steeped in Nigerian folklore, this story features a bad-ass female lead, animal/human hybrids, a talking camel named Onion, strong female mentorship, a desert magician, guarded worlds where magic is protected and an epic adventure. I love Okorafor's work in general and this was no exception. Her stories are full of life, grit and perseverance and her strong female MCs are incomparable.

This book was written over a decade ago but was dusted off and given a new cover as a new sequel was published in late 2023 called LIKE THUNDER which I have a feeling will follow Dikéogu, one of Ejii's companions from book 1 who was one of my favorite characters. He is a Rain Maker who has been struck by lightning multiple times and can wield precipitation.

Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher @tantoraudio for the audio-ARC.

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If you were able to choose your superpower, what would it be?!?

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I have previously read a couple of books by Nnedi Okorafor and enjoyed them, so when I saw Shadow Speaker on netgalley I was pretty excited. This was another enjoyable entry in her list of work. I enjoyed the main characters and the fantasy elements. I especially love the Afro-futuristic aspect of it. If you’ve previously enjoyed other books by Okorafor, you will likely enjoy this one as well.

Nnedi Okorafor has to be one of my favorite authors ever. I loved the futuristic African setting and the combination of sci-fi / fantasy and culture. This is an updated reprint of one of her early books. I haven't read the original out-of-print edition so I can't compare it to that, but as far as I can tell the writing is on par for the excellence you'd expect from a Nnedi Okorafor book. If you love sci-fi fantasy, give it a read!

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

This is an inventive dystopian book that explores heavy themes through the eyes of younger characters. I enjoyed following Ejii's journey. I just had an issue with the pacing.

Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor was excellent. This was my second book by this author and I love the writing, prose, sequencing and character deveopment. Also, the world-building is very thorough. Great narrator.

I received a review copy of this book from the author/publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I love the way Nnedi Okorafor writes her stories. This is the fourth book I have listened to/read from her. I love how she writes her characters and the world-building. The narrators who read her books are always amazing.

Shadow Speaker is the story of our main character, Ejii, finding her voice. Though there are stakes to the character's journey and there are some horrific things that she sees along the way, the story feels like it has much lower stakes. It is much more a character study of Ejii than it is an adventure. I enjoyed it, though this was not my favorite story of Nnedi's.

Unfortunately my general feeling on finishing this book was that of thrown spaghetti - as in, "throw spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks".

In light of the very strong start, this is really a bummer. Initially we are introduced to a complex, fascinating world, where science and magic have gone head to head and everything now has been turned upside down. For example, bullets no longer follow the laws of physics, making them unreliable as weapons. I was excited to find out more about this world.

Instead I received a simplistic quest story - character leaves on foot, makes a friend, they carry on, they make a friend, they carry on together - with magic spaghetti thrown in throughout.

I could have handled the spaghetti if I ever reached an emotional connection with any of the characters. Our main character, Ejii, and supporting talking camel Onion are pleasant enough. Dikeogu is also fine. But none of them fully took my attention.

Around the 70% mark I realized I didn't really care about what was going on. Things had gotten confusing and neither the characters nor the writing were interesting enough to make me want to backtrack and get my bearings.

Honestly, I am sad that this was my introduction to Okorafor's writing, since I know she is so highly regarded in the SFF space and have been looking forward to starting her works for a while. If you've never read her more popular books, maybe start with those before Shadow Speaker. I could maybe be convinced to read the sequel but I will probably not seek it out.

If you are a YA SFF reader that is ok with a no rules, just vibes approach to a magic system, go ahead and read Shadow Speaker. If you need clearer and more complete world building, beautiful and complex prose, or a tight and cohesive plot? Enter at your own risk.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio arc.

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.

Thank you to Tantor Audio and Netgalley for allowing me to have access in exchange for my honest opinion. Once again Okorafor has outdone herself. Is there anything that this amazing woman can't do.

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.

Shadow Speaker was an amazing SciFi Futuristic story that follows a complex and wonderful female main character as she begins to understand the gifts she was born with, how to use them, and what they mean for her future, and the future of the world she lives in. Ejimafor (Eji) is the central character of the book and she will absolutely throw you some curveballs! When you read it, you'll know exactly what I am talking about! From her early life, her tragic backstory, the strained relationship she has with her family, her village, and her gifts, to when she makes a decision to follow the Shadows, this book is full of action and adventure as well as phenomenal characters and relationships. Dikeogu lends his brand of snarky friendship just when it is needed and keeps the story from becoming too desolate. Jaa is about as complex as they come and you will love and hate her in equal measure. This story reminds me of WoT in that several worlds are meshing together via rips in reality/the universe, but with that SciFi edge and explanation. The magic in this world isn't mystical- it's scientific, a mutation. There is also Muslim themes and a sprinkling of faith throughout the text- as well as how Eji reconciles her faith and who she has even told she must be versus who she needs to become. Overall, I really loved this book and look forward to reading more from this author!!

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

I like the story but the audio narration isn't grabbing me so I will wait to until I can read a physical book.

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.

Having not read any of Nnedi Okorafor's work prior to listening to the re-release of Shadow Speaker, I was intrigued how it would hold up, considering it's an expansion of an earlier work from nearly 15 years ago. This book was engaging with the feel of a fantastical West African folk tale, but set in a changed future that mixes both magic and technology (even though technology works differently than in our world). The narrator, Délé Ogundiran, certainly added to it, with a great performance. The world building was my favorite part, hearing about how the world, especially the area in and around what we know as Nigeria, has changed after a world changing conflict. While I didn't entirely grasp some aspects of the magic system, I was still entertained by how mystical it felt and got intrigued by the little details of the world, with great description and detail. We follow Ejii, the daughter of a slain politician and a Shadow Speaker, and has the magic to potentially stop a war. She was developed fair enough, as she works through some issues in her past as she encounters the fantastical and journeys to new lands. The other characters were interesting as well. My only major issue was how some of the smaller adventures dragged out a bit too long. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the second half of the duology and this is a great introduction to Okorafor, and if you're looking for a futuristic/science fantasy story for teens and up that has the African folklore feel, check it out!

I couldn’t get into this book. The story is fantastic - I just couldn’t get into the narrator. I love Nnedi Okorafor’s storytelling. Maybe just go with a different narrator.

I loved Ikenga narrated by Ben Onwukwe
And
Akata Witch narrated by Yetide Badaki

This story is written so lyrically. The writing itself is just a joy to listen to. The story itself has the qualities of something that should be told by an elder over multiple nights. The side quests could be a little hard to follow at lines, but you can happily ride the wave the the language itself over any bumps.