Reviews

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for letting me read an e-ARC of Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. This novella releases on May 21, 2024, and I’m simply chomping at the bit waiting for others to read this so I can gush more about it!

Let me start by saying that dystopian novels are the real reason I fell in love with reading as a kid. This book gave me the same sort of feelings as when I used to devour books as a teenager: I wanted to stay up late and finish this book in one go (RIP all-nighters for me). The chapters are bite-sized and perfect for convincing yourself to read “just one more.”

It opens with a dream sequence that helps situate the reader in the setting: post-climate disaster where the Atlantic Ocean has overtaken land, and humans off the coast of West Africa are now permanently living in five high-rise towers with distinct class ranks. The Uppers are for the wealthy and affluent, where they give no thought about the people or structures below their floors. The Midders are the general working class, only really able to rise to higher floors for work, but are still considered better for being above sea level. The Lowers are just that - those who live below the new sea level. They are a misunderstood people, full of engineers and technicians who keep the entire structure from collapsing and ruin.

We meet our protagonists: Yekini, a Midder analyst; Ngozi, a cocky higher-level Midder government employee; and Tuoyo, a Lower mechanic. When there’s a critical event on the lower floors, these three must unite to save themselves, the tower, and everyone who resides within. They encounter countless barriers as they try to locate a sea-dwelling creature (monster?) who may have entered the tower, but readers witness the internal struggles of each character as they grow through their traumas. In the end, we see a dissolution of barriers like class, gender, and ego to save the future of humanity.

megatza's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Genre: science fiction, speculative fiction, Afrofuturism

In a future of pollution and sea level rise, the people of Lagos live in giant towers, kilometers high but also partially submerged. Yekini is a Midder, a middle-class citizen who lives above the waters but well below the top floors of her tower, and she’s just been given her first solo workzone assignment…on the lower levels, undersea. There’s a legend of other creatures who inhabit the water, called Children, potentially descended from those who were shut outside of the towers when the waters rose. And something is telling Yekini that the disturbance undersea she’ll be investigating has to do with them.

I really enjoyed the scope and pacing of Lost Ark Dreaming. I love the concept of towers as the futuristic living space - it's not an uncommon trope to find in SF, but Okungbowa has put a lot of thought into the worldbuilding. For under two hundred pages, the story has a rich background of details, and Okungbowa knows what to bring into the prose and what to leave floating just off page in the periphery. It has the feeling of a worldbuilding activity, a place where the author could nurture an imaginative instinct while working on his longer epic fantasy.

I haven't left many novellas feeling like I wanted more recently, but I think this could have been a little longer. The ending is very abrupt, and while I enjoy an unsettling end - after all, I cut my teeth on SF short stories as a teen - it felt disconnected from the rest of the story. I recommend approaching the book like a short novel rather than a novella for the pacing.

Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an eARC for review. Lost Ark Dreaming is out 5/21/24!

crothe77's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Africanfuturism climate fiction novella with three POV characters, interludes, poetry, and a report on the Nigeria-Biafra war and genocide. Yekini, Tuoyo, and Ngozi all live in the last tower left in Lagos after the other towers collapsed and took thousands of people with it. When Yekini is assigned to the underwater part of the tower, the Children start to rise.

Africanfuturism is one of my favorite subgenres and this was another instant favorite in the subgenre. The use of cli-fi elements to discuss the current situation of Lagos, a city that is at risk of flooding if global warming continues, helped bring forth how Nigeria is expected to take the trash of the rest of the world as other countries pump out dangerous chemicals and gasses. It also discusses our potential future if we don’t start getting a handle on what we put into the Earth.

The novella flips through the three POVs and the various styles of interlude to provide rich worldbuilding and a layered story by drawing on the past, present, and what could come to be. Yekini’s parents died when the towers started falling and Ngozi’s sister passed when refugees from those towers were killed. Yekini and Ngozi both come from similar situations, but their unique perspectives put them in very different places when the story starts. Tuoyo works hard to keep the tower running but the higher-ups who rely on her don’t care enough to even know her name.

Along with discussing climate change, we also get an exploration of classism. The upper classes live on the higher floors and the lower classes, called Lowers, live on the lower floors. Yekini’s family used to be Lowers before her parents worked to change their family’s fortune. Ngozi has moved up a lot of levels and seems to have forgotten to show solidarity with his fellow former Lower, Yekini, and even steals credit for other people’s work, hinting at sexism in the workplace.

I would recommend this to readers looking for cli-fi set in Africa, fans of explorations of the part towers might play in our future, and those looking for more experimental novellas.

caffeinated_reads3's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

4.0

I have to give it to Netgalley because without them I would most likely NEVER have known about this author, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, nor be exposed to any of his writings. With that being said, this sci-fi, dystopian, post apocalyptic novella by Suyi was a great and quick read. The story involves three main characters who live and work within different levels of towers and hierarchy, and they quickly realize that their status means nothing when their superiors ultimately think little of their lives. The three unlikely characters work together to save their nation living in towers, and they need to draw upon the buried unknown past.

This short novella is a complete story that fully engulfs you into the world created by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. He did an excellent job creating a great flow, and built a world and it's history/mythology. The ending made me frustrated, but I will admit, I found myself invested into the characters in the short time it took to read this novella.

Thank you to Netgalley, Tor Publishing and Suyi Davies Okungbowa for allowing me to read this ARC for a review.

jashanac's review

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3.0

I received a free e-arc from NetGalley for this one and I honestly almost didn't request it, because of it being sci-fi (cli-fi, technically) and also a novella. Two things that aren't often my cup of tea. But: Suyi Davies Okungowa. An author that I tend to enjoy. And the premise sounded intriguing, for sure!

However, I should have trusted my gut instinct that it wouldn't be my cup of tea.

I absolutely think a LOT of people will really enjoy this or truly love it. But for me it was a little too technical-leaning and too abridged feeling. Also the writing style in this was different from Okunbgowa's typical writing style, in my opinion. Much more cryptic and hand-waving, which makes sense I suppose due to this story leaning more heavily on mythology and folklore. But it's not a style of storytelling that does much for me as a reader.

I am also not someone who loves severely open-ended endings that leave A LOT of questions unanswered.

So, I didn't have a terrible time with this, and I truly do see there being a large audience of people who will connect with this story and enjoy it more... but it ended up just being "fine" for me personally.

thereadingrambler's review

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Lost Ark Dreaming I received this book as an eARC from the publisher

One Sentence Review: A well-constructed and engaging climate fiction novella that attempts to blend science and mythology but falls into the trap of privileging one over the other in advocating for a posthuman vision of the future.

Lost Ark Dreaming is sent in the Pinnacle, the tallest and only remaining tower from The Fingers, a five-tower complex built off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, on an artificially constructed island in the closing days of Earth’s ability to sustain our current way of life. Built to withstand inevitable flooding, people from Lagos flee to The Fingers, but each of the other four towers is abandoned as they become uninhabitable. Many people are left to die in the waters, and our main characters are haunted by this very recent history. The tower itself is divided into a fairly strict class hierarchy—literally. The richest and most privileged lived at the top of the tower (with the founder’s descendent, the nominal ruler of the tower, living at the very top), and each level decreased in status, wealth, and power. Our main characters are Ngozi, a fairly high-level bureaucrat, Tuoyo, a mid-level analyst, and Yekini, a low-level foreman. Ngozi and Tuoyo are summoned to Yekini’s level to deal with a breach, a situation that could prove catastrophic. Ngozi strongly and obviously does not want to be there and comes burdened with stereotypes, privilege, and ego; Tuoyo has significantly more mixed feelings but quickly sides with Yekini against Ngozi’s arrogant attitude. The first half of the novella focuses on figuring out what caused the breach, and the second half focuses on the secrets the tower leadership is keeping and their disregard for the lower levels/classes.

In the one-sentence review, I mentioned the inclusion of mythology in this book, and I can’t get more into how mythology enters the book without giving away the twist so just trust me that it is there in the rest of the discussion. A lot of climate fiction has the technofix problem, i.e., if we find the right technology, then all our problems will be solved, and we won’t have to give up too much of our accustomed way of life. I call this a problem because (at least in my opinion) this is a fairly delusional way of thinking as it allows the reader to escape any critical examination of our contemporary behavior. Lost Ark Dreaming does not fully fall into the technofix trap: the world has dramatically changed from what we recognize in some ways, but it still heavily relies on the idea that our salvation will come through the timely appearance of some quasi-magic invention. The only people who are saved are the ones who are able to get to The Pinnacle somehow.

The intrusion into the book of the mythological elements presents a counterpoint to the above observation about the technological elements. And I mean that very literally. It is not just a philosophical difference (although it is that) but one of direct conflict. This is what makes this not a solarpunk novel. Instead of thinking through the implication of intertwining traditional beliefs with the necessity of lifestyle and civilization change separates this from that tradition. The book does end with a gesture to a better future that could embrace the posthuman and confront problematic past choices, but nothing is done with that promise.

The strongest aspect of this novella is the characters. All three of the central characters are narrators with POV chapters that cycle through each person. Each character expresses a lot of their interiority, so the readers get a good look into how each character’s perspectives and beliefs shift through the book as they encounter new information. The plot is well-paced with information reveals given at the right time for character development.The world building did take some shortcuts in the form of relying on the reader already agreeing with the author on some element (i.e., those in power inherently bad) without giving the reader too much information about why. There is no main villain besides a vague power that be. This made the excellent character construction and development of the protagonists fall a little flat at the end.

I love a found documents book and while this isn’t directly a found documents book, there are interstitial chapters which are found documents and this was definitely a personal highlight to get some of the world building and history of this world. I love this kind of

This has nothing to do with the book because the author doesn’t write their own blurbs, but: I think the blurb for this book does it a huge disservice. It is described as being “high-octane” and also implies that all five of the towers are still intact and occupied. The blurb seems to have been written from a synopsis of the book not the actual book.

If you are interested in climate fiction either as an already established connoisseur or someone who is looking to get into the genre, I would recommend this book. I don’t think it is the strongest entry in the genre, but it does present many of the core conflicts and tensions of the genre. The African setting is a welcome breath of fresh air in the American publishing scene as well.

robynrambles's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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