Noor

Product Information

Anwuli Okwudili, more commonly known as AO, is no ordinary woman. After having to endure life with many physical defects, some she had to suffer since birth while others were inflicted on her through a tragic accident, AO, with the help of high-tech equipment supplied to her by a top-tier organization called Ultimate Corp, was able to "fix" her defects by getting new implants, and since her defects were so many, one would wonder if AO is more machine than human at this point. This obviously doesn't help with social integration, and AO is an outcast, looked down upon by most people. After an incident takes place where AO had to resort to fatal violence to defend herself from being brutally murdered, she was forced to escape the town she lives in and head to the ruthless desert to save her life, but nature there might even be as cruel, if not crueler, than her persecutors. In the depths of the desert, AO encounters another outcast, just like her, and the two of them must escape together, knowing very well that the path they are treading leads straight to a terrible desert sandstorm that has been raging on for years on end, slowly getting worse and spreading its reaches to the south. Contributing to the advancement and development of Arab societies and spreading culture and awareness The world our protagonist, AO, inhabits is heavily influenced by mega-corporations and is social-media addicted. (So I guess not too far off from today?) AO is a cyborg, having been born with numerous birth defects. Cybernetic limbs become even more necessary when the damage to her body is made much worse by a catastrophic car accident when she was 14. AO and DNA form a strong bond that will be tested when their lives are threatened by the very corporation that granted AO her cybernetic enhancements. (Again, no spoilers!) Sorayya Khan was born in Vienna, Austria, grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan, and received her BA and MA in the US. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer until she began writing fiction and couldn’t stop.

This sci-fi novel marks my foray into Afrofuturism, and I’m glad it is helmed by a character as adamant and outspoken as AO. One of the main reasons I was engrossed right from the get-go is how straightforward AO’s demeanour (and subsequently, her voice) is.

Comments on Noor Book for Android

That said, there were definitely elements I liked! This is set in a futuristic Nigeria and follows a woman named AO who was born severely disabled and has a lot of biotech components, for which she faces discrimination. It's worth noting that Okorafor is herself disabled which lends added weight to the way that experience is described. The novel started slow with several interleaving stories-within-stories exposing the setting. I didn’t buy into the technological projections like wireless energy transfer over large distances or the superhuman interactions with those AIs. They gave the novel a touch of Fantasy, so don’t expect Hard SF here. Similarly, the Red Eye cyclone is more a fairy tale than dystopian CliFi. We have to give the author a lot of room to draw her setting. Another complaint is that there are a couple chapters written in italics. This is another thing I've come across in more than a couple newer books. Do authors or publishers or whoever makes this decision no longer read The Elements of Style? Italicized words are hard on the eyes and should be used sparingly and not for more than a couple words or a phrase at a time. The Islamic nation is strong and enduring, and the victory for Muslims is coming, even if it's after 500 years when the reasons for victory materialize.

It also enables Arab readers to add evaluation and review of books, create a virtual electronic library, communicate with readers and authors around the world, and Arabs in particular, and encourage users to read, write and author. If none of you ever hear from me again, know that it is because you’ve sent me and this woman to a mad man.” “Sometimes madness is the best path!” SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: Noor by Nnedi Okorafor". Publishers Weekly. August 27, 2021 . Retrieved February 27, 2022. The narration follows main protagonist AO, short for Anwuli Okwudili or in her own words “Artificial Organism”. AO is a cyborg who was born disabled, later on injured in a car accident, and has now large parts of her body replaced by mechanical parts and enhanced with lots of AI augmentations. Others call her a freak, her own parents don’t like her transformation, but she embraces it all. Noor is the first book I read on Pakistan's account of 1971’s liberation war of Bangladesh. The war that gave birth to my land, set my soil free. When Barbara recommended this book to me and said that I might be interested as the story is related to the 71's liberation war, I was like, yes, I HAVE TO read this. I have to read their accounts, not accounts of a politician, but accounts of a common soldier, of someone living in Pakistan and following the war news on the radio. What do they keep in their memories about that time?

This is the first work I read by Nnedi Okorafor. The story is set in a futuristic Nigeria, and the future envisioned by Okorafor is a realistic one I can see happening quite easily. The main themes covered in this work are how foreign powers encroach upon the local resources of less wealthy countries, desecrating the nation in the process while swelling their bank accounts. The organization that is the main power here, Ultimate Corp, sells its products for a price cheaper than the Nigerian market itself, and the citizens themselves feed into an organization that does harm to their country, because the momentary comforts their products give are effective tranquilizers. The theme explored here is a powerful one, and I enjoyed reading it. The novel follows her journey on the run and the truths she discovers. I really loved AO as a character. The pain she suffered, her self-will, and her ability not to see the world through the lens of hatred were admirable. I love both her body positivity and her realistic viewpoints on human behavior and prejudice. Not that I wish people weren't so horrible of course. This novel doesn't shy from the selfish things folks do out of ignorance or selfishness or fear. But there is good in humanity as well. I also loved the herdsman DNA and his two awesome cows. The big bad is a global biotech company with fingers in many places. We follow AO on a journey of sorts after her engagement is broken off. A lot of seemingly random things occur, but a lot of it does come together at the end, even if it takes awhile to get there. One element I found entertaining is the subversion of the "magical negro" trope by instead having this mystical white man appear and offer the main characters wisdom on their journey. And also marijuana. Setting a white character as the exotic other in this way is an interesting choice. Though there is a not-very-detailed but exceedingly corny sex scene, it reads like a YA novel and the protagonist comes across as a teenager instead of a young woman. (Excerpt from sex scene: "I slightly lengthened my legs, so that he could meet me with perfect sweetness". Really? "With perfect sweetness"???? 🤦‍♀️)

I'll be honest that this isn't my favorite thing from Okorafor, but you should know that I listened to this as an audio review copy which may have impacted my experience. I found the story difficult to follow at times and maybe a physical copy would have been helpful. This is nothing against the narrator because she did a great job, I just felt like I missed key details along the way. (like what exactly is this Noor? Were we ever told? Did I somehow miss that?) Okorafor has a gift for inner dialogue; her protagonist’s reaction to herself and her environment inspires the reader’s sense of being there. If you tell us something happened in the past, we get it. We don't have to have the chapter written in italics to suddenly understand this happened prior to the rest of the story. Please stop treating readers as though we can't get something that basic. And how does this translate to audio? Does the narrator suddenly start talking with her nose pinched shut? Just stop with the italics already.Anwuli Okwudili has always been made to feel like she doesn’t belong. In the eyes of society, there’s too much about her that’s machine-powered, and consequently, not organic. So when she retaliates against a group of men who assaulted her, she accidentally ends up killing them, giving the government the perfect reason to hunt her down.

Though the first half didn’t have as clear of a direction as the second, I think I still liked it better. The abrupt violence of AO’s and DNA’s altercations with suspicious and aggressive people was such a stark introduction, especially considering they were supposedly in spaces they believed to be safe for themselves to exist. Somewhere in the middle of the book I wasn’t exactly sure where the story was going at all, but eventually I found my footing and overall enjoyed the journey. On a dozing afternoon when the winter is merging into the long lasting summer of my land, I have finished reading Noor. Russia has invaded Ukraine the previous day and my soil is free, once which was deep red. The story building was seamless. The details here and there would form a grin on my face. Like, the seven up bottles, S-i-n-g-e-r sewing machine (it is still printed like this today!), ordinary life of a Pakistani family, of a Pakistani woman- all these are crafted with accuracy you wouldn’t find much in English books. You can almost picture the household, hear the Urdu words falling from their mouths. And the accurate details of then East Pakistan and now Bangladesh left wider grins on my face.

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Arab countries will not prosper and stabilize as long as the Zionist entity exists within the body of the Arab nation. Noor" is an Arabic word roughly referring to light. For a tale that mostly took place in a setting where the sun doesn't shine, it almost came off as ironic, until I got much farther along in the story. Noor also happens to be the name of a fictional invention that revolutionized renewable energy in this future Nigeria. There are so many cool ideas and awesome tech but little of it was explained. Yes, it's fiction, but still. If the author doesn't even attempt to explain how new technologies work, then it loses plausibility.