James Nicoll Reviews

Tochi Onyebuchi’s 2020 Riot Baby is a standalone science fiction novella. 

Fleeing LA following the King riots, Ella and her brother Kev are destined for typical American childhoods — that is, typical for African Americans. Frequently unpleasant, subject to violence and injustice. Ella is a precog, which in this case isn’t all that great. She sees what’s coming at her and often it isn’t good. 

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Tochi Onyebuchi’s 2019 War Girls is a MilSF novel. 

The Western powers — the oyinbo — gave the world the gifts of climate change and nuclear war. In the aftermath of the war, nations like America and Britain established glittering space colonies. Many nations succumbed to fallout. Nigeria, on the border of the uninhabitable zone, home to mineral riches, fell back on the familiar habits of civil war: Biafra’s Igbo against everyone else. 

Young Onyii is already a seasoned veteran; the loss of an arm has only strengthened her desire to see Biafra free of Nigerian and oyinbo interference. Her only distraction from patriotic fervour is her adopted sister Ify, whom Onyii rescued after Ify was orphaned as an infant. The two sisters live in a camp hidden from Nigerian sensors. 

But not hidden well enough. 

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