Death of the Author

by

eBook

English language

Published Jan. 16, 2025 by Gollancz.

ISBN:
978-1-3996-2298-1
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ISFDB ID:
3394110
Goodreads:
214546695

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(4 reviews)

The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she’s suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister’s wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she’s not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life – she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu’s life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.

9 editions

reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Strange, thought-provoking tale

Two books rolled into one and then, a third book plays a decisive role. I loved the poetic excerpts from "Rusted Robots" and its reflections about friendship and enemies, how immediate existing conflicts keep the robots from fighting an existential threat in an echo of what happened to humanity. The main framing story takes place in the near future and sometimes appears a bit meandering but I felt contained a lot of observations about storytelling and family relationships. There's a big twist towards the end which give the whole book another meta layer. I plan to re-read it at some point.

reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Didn't love much about this.

Strong potential in near future Nigerian/American family tensions of over fame and disability, Chicago and African settings, interwoven with a further out robot society facing human-like challenges of witnessing cataclysm. And large parts, especially the more painful, feel like and are author-memoir. So disappointing to dislike most of the characters and their overall arcs, through accident and levels of seeking independence.

reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

None

This was a really interesting book, and I think it's one where I kinda blame the blurb for messing up my reading of it. The basic premise is that a Nigerian-American woman, down on her luck, writes a book about robots in a post human future that ends up becoming a huge international success (not a spoiler, literally part of the blurb). But then the blurb says "something strange begins to happen", which made me expect something supernatural or magical realism-ish to happen, and I kept expecting, and kept expecting, but it didn't come. Because that's not really the type of book this is. It's really just a book about this woman's experience of life and family, and navigating the world with a disability. It is a beautiful book. I love it, and I think I want to try listening to it again sometime later with this mentality. I won't …

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