Up for a quest, anyone?

Here are two new books which deal with quests and young and empowered female characters in magical, yet dystopian settings.  

REMOTE CONTROL by Nnedi Okorafor is a very exciting sci-fi read that was a LibraryReads selection for January 2021. The main character, envisioned on the cover, is a child named Fatima who develops a magical power so that whenever she touches mechanical or technological devices they “die.” Anger, too, causes her to glow green and sometimes kill people around her so there are several dark moments. Eventually, she becomes widely known as Sankofa, or the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. The story (also labeled Afrofuturism) involves a meandering journey across Ghana as she grows into being a teenager and learns to anticipate and control her “power.” There is an air of mystery and menace throughout and I quite liked the way Okorafor shifted the scenes with travelling and new characters, although the ending was a bit puzzling to me. Okorafor has won both Nebula and Hugo awards for her writing; REMOTE CONTROL received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly who said, “Readers will be blown away.” 

A gentler, but sadly, slower adventure story is D (A TALE OF TWO WORLDS) by Michel Faber. I requested an advance reader copy based on its being termed a “sheer delight” by The Washington Post and because the premise (the letter d is disappearing or, isappearing, to be precise) seemed unique and appealing. I did like the fantastical elements – with cat-like characters named Droods (roos, of course) and an evil ruler called Gamp, both somewhat reminiscent of Star Wars stories. There is a sphinx called Nelly, who can change into a dog/og, and a young female protagonist named Dhikilo (Dicky/Icky), too, but she often seems overly naïve and conveniently lucky and their travels dragged a bit for me. D (A TALE OF TWO WORLDS) received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and seems more likely to work as a read-aloud (have fun with the missing “d’s”) for late elementary and/or early middle school students, fans of Pullman’s The Golden Compass or The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.