Simply this 12 months, Moses Ose Utomi has swaggered onto the literary scene. February delivered his well-received debut YA novel, Daughters of Oduma, and he’s adopted it a bit over a month later with an grownup fantasy novella, The Lies of the Ajungo. With this one-two punch, Utomi follows the likes of Veronica Roth and V. E. Schwab in proving a dab hand at navigating the calls for of various readerships.
Whereas I can’t personally communicate to Daughters of Oduma, The Lies of the Ajungo is a pointy, putting work of Afrofantasy that makes use of sparse storytelling to phenomenal impact. It’s without delay a folks story and a bildungsroman, following a boy on a quest to seek out water and hope alongside it.
Earlier than diving into the story of protagonist Tutu, Utomi sketches out a short historical past: Within the distant previous, the Ajungo took benefit of the folks’s want, forging a deal that silenced the inhabitants and empowered the Ajungo to rename the town because the Metropolis of Lies, that no outsiders might ever consider their plight. Within the generations since, many youngsters have got down to proper this historic incorrect, however none have returned. Chatting with points round entrenched energy, the premise is compelling. In simply three pages, Utomi outlines the truth of systemic injustice and why it’s so troublesome to resolve.
Past the partitions of the town is the Perpetually Desert, a world that challenges Arrakis from Dune or Factus from Ten Low in its searing hostility to human life. However simply as there isn’t a water within the Metropolis of Lies, there’s no water within the desert, so stepping past the breach is a idiot’s errand.
The a whole lot of years of failure have bred a chorus that runs by means of the e book: “There are not any heroes within the Metropolis of Lies.” However possibly hope is to be discovered within the newest adventurer.
After the worst day of his life, 13-year-old Tutu steps up as a result of he sees no different choices. The years of hardship have made him a realist, but they’ve additionally embedded in him a way of righteousness. Nonetheless, he’s always imperiled by his lack of understanding. Like the opposite residents of the Metropolis of Lies, he is aware of little of the world past. He doesn’t know methods to survive or battle and even belief. He’s an harmless in a vicious world, and that’s sufficient to encourage the reader’s sympathy. As essential as these traits are to Tutu’s character, Utomi doesn’t linger on them. As a substitute, he turns his consideration to equipping Tutu with the instruments he wants, and it’s a speedy schooling.
The Lies of the Ajungo is lower than 100 pages lengthy, and Utomi makes each one among them depend. When Tutu isn’t studying, he’s unlocking the intricate Gordian knot that sits on the coronary heart of this world. Every new character and story beat pulls the narrative in a brand new course. It retains you guessing however, much more impressively, forces you to re-evaluate what you assume . There are twists upon twists, and each single one among them lands. This fixed narrative motion provides the e book an plain page-turning high quality that had me blasting by means of it in a single sitting.
Utomi’s sparse prose reinforces that breeziness. From characterization to world-building, the author boils the whole lot all the way down to the naked necessities. It provides the story a way of efficiency, an consciousness that the whole lot that’s included issues, from Tutu’s shifting relationship with the folks he finds within the Perpetually Desert (written into the best way they work together reasonably than having specific consideration drawn to them) to the vagueness of what’s mentioned and recognized in regards to the Ajungo.
And finally, that high quality displays again on the story as a complete. Sure, Tutu is looking for water and hope, but much more than that, he’s looking for data, for the reality that underpins the workings of his world. It’s an enthralling quest that speaks to points of faux information and post-truth realities in the true world, and that direct connection provides it a way of resonance.
The Perpetually Desert is an excellent new fantasy world, and Utomi isn’t executed with it but. An extra two books are deliberate. What could also be most fascinating is that they’re not direct continuations. The Reality of the Akele, due out subsequent 12 months, shifts the motion ahead 500 years, and the synopsis already out there hints at much more twists. For now, although, The Lies of the Ajungo is greater than sufficient to slake the thirst of fantasy followers in search of one thing genuinely recent.
A overview copy of The Lies of the Ajungo was supplied by the writer.
