by Nnedi Okorafor
The pacing is weird - for such a short book with such a lot of action, I'm not sure why it was such a slow and disjointed read.
The book tries (and mostly succeeds) to hold the Even Better Than Natural tech and development solutions in tension with back-to-the-land tradition. If it comes down anywhere it's on the side of tradition, which I feel kind of :S about. Putting the revolution on the back of one superpowered individual undermines idealization of normal small untechnically enhanced lives, though.
Most of the sci fi elaboration was very interesting and thoughtful, but unfortunately some of it was very dumb. Example: "What fascinated me most was that, because the anti-عجج prevented rain and wind, people lived right out in the open, not a house in sight." Great start, go on! "And there was so much open space, privacy wasn't an issue." What!! So even supposing that everyone is so enlightened that they have no desire to fuck in private (not addressed), Okorafor does not seem to be saying this is a utopia, there is definitely capitalism happening, and do you really expect there to be no theft or assault? People just feel comfortable being at one big slumber party with the entire city? Maybe we're supposed to imagine it's like a big park, with trees and stuff, but the need to artificially install sunlight anywhere you want plants to grow and the lack of mention of any landscaping makes that a harder sell.
I really did enjoy a lot of the sci fi, but the superpowers were extremely silly and broke my suspension of disbelief.