Rosewater
"Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless--people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers. Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. A sensitive, he can navigate the massive psychic space created by the dome. But when something within the dome begins killing other sensitives, Kaaro must defy his masters to avert a horrifying future."--Back cover.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
6mentions
6people
2022–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Thanks for sharing, and am always interested in more Nigerian culture since reading Rosewater.
- I caught up with some science fiction this year.
The Murderbot diaries books by Martha Wells - 6/10. Mixed on these. They're fun to read. The setting is cool and the worldbuilding is shallow but effective (i.e., don't read it if you want game of thrones in space). Each novella takes an afternoon to read. I think "snarky violent droid" is overcooked these days and lost interest after book 5.
Light by M. John Harrison - 7/10 excellent prose; great multiple-storyline plot; the journey was better than the destination, but it kept me thinking
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson - 7/10 Fun. If "near future Nigerian/British post-colonial frontier action with guns, robots, and psychic aliens" sounds cool to you, check it out. I liked his Rosewater Trilogy just as much.
Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts - tough to rate these. brilliant ideas, VERY challenging plots. I wish I didn't get so confused by the end of each book.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 6/10 - this and the Martian read like blog posts pasted together. The grand dilemma is spelled out on page one and never gets any deeper. Pro: the plot is in your face on every page and you will never be confused when reading; Con - there is zero internal character development. Read if you like stories driven by applied science, not comparative moral decision-making.
The City and the City by China Miéville - 9/10 - you will invariably see something like "Kafka meets [some affected crime novelist] to describe this book, and that ain't wrong. Kind of SF, kind of fantasy.
Railsea by China Miéville - 8/10 - great good vs evil YA SF about, well, imagine if trains were like boats. Good character writing, tight plot.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - 8/10 - loved this. More "realist" near-future fabulism than Gibson, but if you love cyberpunk, read this.
The Shipbreaker Triology by Paolo Bacigalupi - 6/10 - near-future YA science fiction with a lot of blood and guns. Pretty good stories.
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers - 9/10 - reread. I had to go back. This gets a near perfect score because of its style, setting, and plot.
The Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson - 9/10 - I had read Neuromancer 3 times but never the next two. I was pleasantly surprised to find the second and third novel easier to read* but just as enjoyable as Neuromancer.
The Bridge trilogy by William Gibson - 8/10 so far. I am in the second book. Can't believe I slept on these for the last couple decades.
non-SF:
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad - 9/10 - if you like punk/hardcore from the 80s, this is a great read.
* Every time I read Neuromancer, Gibson's literary footguns --holograms, false memories, hallucinations, and drug-addled unreality--make me feel crazy for not being able to follow the plot at times. I'm okay with believing that was the intended effect.
- I’d highly recommend Tade Thompson’s novel Rosewater. It’s a bit hard to describe honestly but it’s an afrofuturist novel taking place in Nigeria and involves aliens and mind altering experiences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewater_(Thompson_novel)
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson is also very good but set on a different planet so a bit more divorced from today. It is still afrofuturism, and still covers a lot of the topics you describe. It can be a bit tough to read, at least I found it to be, as the Caribbean accents are very strong.
- I recently finished Rosewater by Tade Thompson and am about 20% of the way through Neal Stephenson's latest, Termination Shock.
I recommend both. They are super fun and irreverent but with character depth and interesting sci-fi / future elements.
- I've only read the first book, and that a while ago, but my memory is that, while humans are the focus of Thompson's Rosewater trilogy, they are again neither the Big Bad nor the Big Good.
- Some awesome pics from a great Nigerian author :)
Has anyone read Rosewater by Tade Thompson?
