Oware Mosaic by Nzondi

Omnnium Gatherum, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1949054163

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

I am always excited to see Afrofuturist writing getting positive recognition, so I was really looking forward to reading Oware Mosaic.  The novel is set in Ghana in 2025, following worldwide natural disasters caused by climate change and a nuclear war leading to  a “Final Event” that created radioactive areas and caused mutations in the animals in Ghana.  Instead of cell phones and computers, people have neural implants that serve as communication, entertainment, and information searching devices. Seventeen-year-old Feeni is an “ennie”, an “enhanced human” who “gains sustenance from blood” but is not a vampire. Ennies are persecuted, killed, and trafficked by anti-ennie humans.  Feeni grew up in abusive foster homes, although she is now living with her own family, a close-knit group that can get crowded. Her escape is an immersive online game, House of Oware, where she plays the character of a forensic scientist. Real-life cases are sometimes assigned to her online character, and she finds herself investigating a hit-and-run she was responsible for and covered up.

Despite my really wanting to love this, there is a serious flaw in this book that made suspension of disbelief for this book impossible for me. The book is set in 2025 (it is not an alternate reality, as it references Obama’s election and the recent television show Uncle Grandpa,  among other things), and a majority of the characters have neural implants. There is absolutely no way so many people would have such a piece of technology surgically implanted in the next five years. Nzondi is inconsistent and sometimes unrealistic in the way he presents Feeni and the way she moves, dresses, and talks, and some of his cultural references are confusing. I enjoyed the interactions with family members and out in the community, which created a much-needed rounding out of the Ghanaian setting (and he did this really well), but it also slowed the story down, and it’s unclear where the plot is going. There is the germ of a good story in here but it needs much more work for that to emerge. Based on what I read, though, I don’t think I can recommend this as YA horror. Is this science fiction? Post-apocalyptic fiction? Crime fiction? A combination? If Nzondi decides to reshape the story, I will be interested to see how he does it.

Editor’s note:  Oware Mosaic was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.