remote control by nnedi okorafor

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor – Review but mainly Thoughts

‘Are they looking for troublemakers? Who’s collecting all the data?’… ‘Everything’s collecting data.’
Nnedi Okorafor, Remote Control

Fatima forgot her name when she was visited by Death, the day that she’s renamed as Sankofa.

Sankofa’s touch ends in death – for living beings as well as inanimate objects. She leads a lonely life walking from town to town, sometimes with a companion fox, but always with her own thoughts.

I thought it was so interesting that Sankofa literally can’t touch any technology and is ostracized (and worse) from not owning a cell phone, when people say that she looks like a remote control when she glows.

I did enjoy this read – it was pretty interesting and a quick one to go through. I liked that Okorafor put Sankofa into a technologically advanced town lacking a phone.

“It’s only because you have nothing on you that it can scan. It’s like a nosy old woman when she’s denied gossip.”
re: Robocop; Nnedi Okorafor, Remote Control

If we keep our heads down and we look at our devices at all times, we may just miss the life that’s happening around us.

All four people had mobile phones on them, yes, even the child.
Nnedi Okorafor, Remote Control

Context: A 7 year old child was killed by a driver as he and other pedestrians were crossing the streets engrossed in their phones, which is standard practice as there’s a robocop directing traffic.

Side note: I laughed when I checked this out of the library and started reading it that night – it had been a random pick with some holiday reads, and what day was it on the opening page? Christmas Day.

Read on.

Alessandra is reading…