Synopsis:
When a precocious Guardian in Sector Z in New Inku’lulu—an elite space outpost—misuses her sound magic, the Guardians punish her by stripping away her magical ability.
Now Chant’L is exiled to Savage Mound, a sound island on planet Wiimb-ó, and grows increasingly vengeful—until she discovers that magic is inborn, never truly lost or taken. She channels energy from two spirit moons and reclaims her sound magic.
Chant’L summons the Nga’phandileh, creatures of unreality. But her magic is more than she bargained for when an uncontained trinity of the hive mind slips from unreality and brings peril to the federation of planets.
Now the Guardians in Sector Z find themselves with a massive catastrophe they must not only keep secret, but resolve.
A science fiction horror from an award-winning queen of Afro-Irreal genre bending.
Review:
Throughout the past few years I’ve really been pushing myself to expand my boundaries. As a white dude who lives in the Midwest of the United States it’s easy to keep reading the same ol’, same ol’. I could easily read John Grisham, Dan Brown, James Patterson, Lee Child and a few others on repeat, but I found I was bored with reading the same stuff all the time (although sometimes you just gotta read one of those, too).
Earlier this year I read Combat Monsters, a World War II Monster anthology and discovered some new writers, including Eugen Bacon. I loved her take on the material and really enjoyed the perspective on the war from a different continent than Europe. So when I saw a new novella from Bacon, I figured maybe I should take a longer look at her writing.
The Nga’phandileh Whisperer is a bold and fascinating sci-fi cosmic horror tale that opens up a larger world that Bacon just touches on in this novella. This work is billed as a “Sauútiverse Novella,” which led me down a larger rabbit-hole to the Sauúti Collective. Bacon is one of 10 African writers who have joined together to write fiction in their own shared sci-fi universe. There are a small handful of stories out already in the Sauútiverse. According to their website (www.sauuti.com):
Sauúti is taken from the word “Sauti” which means “voice” in Swahili. This world is a five-planet system orbiting a binary star. This world is rooted deeply in a variety of African mythology, language, and culture. Sauúti weaves in an intricate magic system based on sound, oral traditions and music. It includes science-fiction elements of artificial intelligence and space flight, including both humanoid and non-humanoid creatures. Sauúti is filled with wonder, mystery and magic.
And that description fits Bacon’s The Nga’phandileh Whisperer well. It is very much a sci-fi story set on an alien world, but the spiritual aspect takes on a magical fantasy side to the story from the perspective of African storytelling and folklore.
Now…this novella could be a tough read for some people — it’s written in second-person. Eugen Bacon forces the reader to literally become part of the story, feeling the chaos of Chant’l’s life and the desperation she feels. It starts with a fairly steady foundation, but the second-person storytelling makes it feel off and it experiments and plays a lot on the way to the final act of the book. By the time we have about twenty percent left, the second-person perspective feels more comfortable and Chant’l has figured out her life and purpose better so heading into the climax and finale the reader is on firm ground.
What is really rewarding about this book is the prose. Eugen Bacon writes some beautiful passages throughout this novella, littered with evocative and descriptive words that bring you right into the tale. While I read an ebook of The Nga’phandileh Whisperer, I can’t help but feel that with the right narrator, parts of this book would feel magical. I’m glad I took a chance on Eugen Bacon’s Sauútiverse novella and I know I’ll try to find some other works set in the same universe in the future.
Thank you to Stars and Sabers Publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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