I really enjoyed Wole Talabi’s new book, The Fist of Memory. It has lots of action but also a lot of thoughtful exploration of the need for connections and empathy; I also enjoyed how disparate characters and plot elements ended up coming together.
From the publisher’s summary: When a non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky, global powers are thrown into turmoil. But for Tope, a principled Nigerian assassin with a talent for lethality in the employ of the mysterious witchdoctor known as “Baba,” it’s all just business as usual. At least until a job goes wrong, and Tope is caught in the scramble—a high stakes game of power and politics for the future that is to come. Joined by Itumeleng, a South African astronomer plagued by mysterious dreams, they must find a way to survive, navigate their complicated pasts, and come to understand how they, and all of humanity, are connected to the alien craft before it lands and the world changes forever. But it won’t be easy. There are sinister forces marshalled against them, including a strange assassin obsessed with a single memory.
So, right, there are actually TWO assassins as POV characters in this book, although Tope gets much more time than Ahanna. That seemed a little bit excessive to me at first, but it turned out that time was a circle that was bringing them together for a reason. The summary calls Tope a “principled” assassin, and she does try to avoid collateral damage (non-target casualties), but that isn’t always possible, and there are consequences. She’s the only character whose story is told in first person (the rest are third person, and all are mostly present tense), which makes the action and other scenes a little more immediate and considerably more sympathetic than they might have been.
The fourth POV character is Ufuoma, who doesn’t appear until Chapter 11. She’s the Nigerian president’s personal assistant. Through her eyes, we get to see some political movements behind the scenes, and understand more of what’s going on in the wider world, but she doesn’t really interact with the other characters, and I feel like the readers could have gotten most of that through news reports. Maybe she’s there for balance?
The person besides Tope who gets the most screentime is Itumeleng, the South African astronomer who is the first to spot the high-speed object entering the solar system and to realize that its behavior means it is controlled by intelligent beings. For most of the book, he is conflicted with his origins; he had refused to follow his grandmother’s ways as a mystic, the intercessor for her community with their ancestors and the spirits of the land, but he’s been having visions and hearing voices since her death two weeks ago. When he finally decides to stop listening solely to rationalism and follow his instincts, this puts him on a path to reconciling his head with his heritage, and much more.
The other POV presence is the collective consciousness of the aliens. They have a reason for coming to Earth, which is eventually revealed.
The coming of the aliens affects the entire world, but this book is very much from an African point of view. Most of the action happens in Nigeria, and Itumeleng ends up going there, too. It’s set in the near future; all the characters have AI personal assistant chips embedded in their heads, pretty much as a given that is hardly examined. I don’t love that, given my strong anti-generative AI position, but that really wasn’t the point that this book is addressing, so I let it go.
The main point that The Fist of Memory is addressing is that humanity basically has to choose between two paths: solipsistic fragmentation and stagnation, or embracing connections with each other, and moving into a great new future together. As I’m reading it, part of the way to do this is to relax our collective death-grip on each of the traumas we have endured in the past (the fist of memory) and to open our hands to each other instead. Not to forget, but to realize that there’s more to everybody’s story than we know.
MILD SPOILERS:
The aliens want to help humanity to do this, to show people the way to really connect with each other and evolve to a new state of united humanity. This reminded me a little of the TV show “Pluribus” or of the cooperation gene in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time, EXCEPT that consent is essential to the process. There is no connective uplift without that consent.
MILD SPOILERS CONTINUE: The option for ultimate connection is open to everyone, however. Redemption is possible for anyone who reaches out for it. (Although this is not at all a Christian book, something that happened near the end reminded me of the story of the thieves crucified next to Jesus, as told in Luke 23:39-43, where one of them rebukes the other for mockery, and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom, and Jesus says “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” It shocked me to realize, when looking this up, that Matthew just says both thieves mocked him.)
SPOILERS END
For anyone who really enjoyed Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, as I did in 2023, Tolabi’s new book, The Fist of Memory, shows that he’s still exploring fascinating questions in a really exciting, engaging way. It’s somewhat more ruthless than the heist book (although that had plenty of collateral damage too, IIRC), and somewhat more tightly focused, but it has the same way of weaving a really interesting tapestry together in a really entertaining way.
The Fist of Memory, by Wole Talabi, was published today, Oct. 27. (416 pages)
Content warnings: Assassinations, massacres, violent, bloody battles, child soldiers, betrayals.
Disclaimer: I received a free eARC for review from the publisher via NetGalley.
