The WIRED Book Club is back after the holidays! The intrepid book clubbers, whose impressive reading list runs the gamut from contrasting Sex Criminals with Bitch Planet to devouring Jeff VanderMeer’s entire Southern Reach Trilogy in one month, have decided to ease into 2017 with a novella: Binti, Nnedi Okorafor’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning tale about the first Himba woman chosen to attend the prestigious Oomza University far from Earth, and the alien Meduse she encounters along the way.
In case you haven’t had a chance to pick up Binti yet, here’s the summary:
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.
While the WIRED Book Club usually splits books into chunks, as Binti is only 90 pages, they’ll be reading it in one go. Check back in on Thursday, January 19 to join the chat about the book; might we suggest this fascinating bit of trivia about Binti’s inspiration? The discussion will wrap up just in time to pick up the sequel, Binti: Home, available January 31.
