The Sword and Laser discussion

Since it's still the start of the month, I want to give more time before diving into more spoilery elements of the book. It provides a rich framework to explore, though, for someone like me who only had a vague sense of Nigerian culture before reading the book. I've been poking around the the magic and spirit world represented in the book and it's pretty interesting.

Nnedi Okorafor coined the term 'africanjujuism' to describe the sub-genre of her fantasy books. The magical and fantastical elements are drawn from West African culture and specifically in many cases from Igbo traditions and practices. Okorafor develops the juju Sunny and the others are learning and practicing so it provides a solid storytelling framework (and that can be the basis for a more spoilery discussion later) but it flows from traditional beliefs.

However, I was especially taken by the masquerades. In the book, they are not the symbolic representations non-magical Lambs know but very real manifestations that can be brought over from the spirit world of the wilderness. They play an important role in the book and are introduced very early. The book Sunny is given, "Fast Facts for Free Agents" talks about the ways men and boys dress up and I was curious about that aspect.

It's not easy to find sources that seem like decent representation, especially if you have no idea what is or isn't accurate. But this video captured a lot of different masquerades visually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUSy3...

This also had some good videos of masquerades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJvvJ...

Again, I have no way to judge the accuracy of the narration in either video.

I also found that Nnedi Okorafor had a blog post on her experience of masquerades. It's worth reading.

https://nnedi.blogspot.com/2010/07/ne...

And while looking around I found pictures of Zuma Rock. In the book Zuma Ajasco, the Abuja Leopard headquarters, is at the foot of Zuma Rock. It is a striking landmark.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/z...