My copy of Noor by Nnedi Okorafor was kindly provided by NetGalley and DAW publishing for a thoroughly honest review. Thanks!

Noor is, as of writing this, scheduled for release on November 16, 2021.

Noor is the story of AO, a young woman who, through circumstances of her birth and a car accident, is heavily augmented. One day, while shopping in the market, everything goes horribly wrong. Now she is on the run. Along the way she meet a Fulani tribesman named DNA, who also finds himself on the run.

Since everything is streamed, the whole world has seen their crimes and is glued to their screens watch the chase play out. Now AO and DNA must flee from their pursuers across the unforgiving desert, with very little hope of survival.

I guess I should start off by saying that I really enjoyed Binti by the author. I thought that book was really well done, so I hoped this book would be just as thought provoking and entertaining as that one was. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Noor was a fast paced adventure story that also encourages you to stick it to the man. Or, at the very least, the very large corporation. It uses Africanfuturism (the author’s preferred way of calling it) to tout the dangers of letting a corporation become to big.

The characters are wonderfully written. You really feel for AO and DNA’s plight as they race through the unforgiving desert wasteland that makes up their only refuge. AO and DNA could not be more different and yet their dynamic is brilliantly done.

Speaking of the desert. Nope. Do not want to go there. Not even for a short visit. The desert in Nigeria has undergone a massive cataclysm that makes it inhospitable to human life, and it’s there that our main characters must flee.

This book did not end the way I thought it would, which is a good thing. But I also think it was the only way it could have ended. I dislike predictable endings. Because when I say I really thought it was going to end a different way, I mean it.

But what do I rate it? I give it a 4 out of 5 stars.