Like many readers out there, I walked into this book with zero knowledge of the Nigerian Civil War, a lamentable gap in knowledge that nevertheless had no negative impact on my appreciation for this book. Of course, when I find myself wondering "what's going on here?" I'm the kind of person who loves to take a break and Google the hell out of everything, so I now have a much more fleshed-out understanding of 1960s-era Nigerian history thanks to the folks at Wikipedia than I have ever gained through all my twenty years of schooling (wow this makes me feel ANCIENT as well as uninformed). Which kind of feels appropriate, given that Onyii and Ify must constantly glean information by way of unofficial connections and hijacked signals. What am I trying to say here? I've lost my coherence, I know, but I suppose I would sum up my recommendation this way: If you enjoy books that teach you something, but also that don't wait around for you to gain widely available information from freely accessible sources, you're probably going to like this book. If you require a book to be about people like you or that live in a time and place that feels familiar to you in order to enjoy reading it, you may need to work on that (for other reasons, too, but also to enjoy this book).
It's a difficult thing, tackling war and its aftermath and its impact on families both born and made, especially in the context of a science fiction or fantasy book. And given our blockbuster addiction to war as a medium for the emergence of heroes, it's probably not surprising that of the many iterations we would get many of them wrong. Or render them into something that's all style and no substance. In that context it's interesting to me that so many of the blurbs of this book would compare it to Marvel's "Black Panther," a film I enjoyed very much but which takes a very Marvel approach to the subject of war. War in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is merely a proving ground for heroes (and antiheroes, I'll admit); it's always tightly framed around the faces of a chosen few with incredible powers, not the myriad faces of those condemned to live and die on the fringes of the main plot. New York and even big swathes of Wakanda might explode in incredibly beautiful slow motion, but how real are the stories of those injured by those explosions, or killed, or turned into fanatical child soldiers by them? The costs of war in any Marvel movie are limited to the smudge of soot highlighting Captain America's chiseled jawline or the loss of a peripheral character motivating Iron Man or Black Panther to step up and fight evil.
I love superhero movies. But they're as much about privilege as anything, with the gifted or wealthy few standing around in sleek laboratories or on rooftops or in artfully bloodied streets formulating plans that will save--who? faceless crowds of innocents?--from impending atomization. Meanwhile, down in the city streets below, countless much more interesting stories are unfolding. (And don't get me started on how forgotten rural lives are in all of this.)
"War Girls" is packed with towering mechs and exciting action sequences and explosions, but it's not remotely like a superhero movie. It's not, ultimately, about heroes, even though the word gets flung around (sometimes mockingly) about certain characters on both sides of an historically-inflected future conflict. In many ways, I was reminded of all the things I loved about Rosaria Munda's recent fantasy book "Fireborne," in which characters often do admirable things but just as often do terrible things, and what makes for friendship in a time of war is an inextricably tangled mess. I was also reminded of the best works of journalistic nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent works) I've read, such as Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" and the conflict zone writings of Arundhati Roy. All of these resonances made sense to me when I read Onyebuchi's afterward for "War Girls," wherein he references Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alexis Okeowo, Sandra Uwiringiyimana, Ishmael Beah, and Uzodinma Iweala, among others. That Onyebuchi also drew from his mother's personal recollections of the Nigerian Civil War speaks both for the emotional impact of this book and the sheer scale of the conflict that inspired "War Girls." I was drawn in from the first page to the last, and now that I've set the book aside for a minute to think about it, I find myself more emotional than ever.
This is a book with sticking power. Sure, the science fictional aspects are fun and all. But the power of fiction, regardless of genre, is its ability to open doors into worlds and lives that would otherwise remain somewhere vaguely over there and unreachable. And "War Girls" opened a door for me, jammed in a doorstop, and dared me to learn how to see better, understand better, and be better. Amazing.
It's a difficult thing, tackling war and its aftermath and its impact on families both born and made, especially in the context of a science fiction or fantasy book. And given our blockbuster addiction to war as a medium for the emergence of heroes, it's probably not surprising that of the many iterations we would get many of them wrong. Or render them into something that's all style and no substance. In that context it's interesting to me that so many of the blurbs of this book would compare it to Marvel's "Black Panther," a film I enjoyed very much but which takes a very Marvel approach to the subject of war. War in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is merely a proving ground for heroes (and antiheroes, I'll admit); it's always tightly framed around the faces of a chosen few with incredible powers, not the myriad faces of those condemned to live and die on the fringes of the main plot. New York and even big swathes of Wakanda might explode in incredibly beautiful slow motion, but how real are the stories of those injured by those explosions, or killed, or turned into fanatical child soldiers by them? The costs of war in any Marvel movie are limited to the smudge of soot highlighting Captain America's chiseled jawline or the loss of a peripheral character motivating Iron Man or Black Panther to step up and fight evil.
I love superhero movies. But they're as much about privilege as anything, with the gifted or wealthy few standing around in sleek laboratories or on rooftops or in artfully bloodied streets formulating plans that will save--who? faceless crowds of innocents?--from impending atomization. Meanwhile, down in the city streets below, countless much more interesting stories are unfolding. (And don't get me started on how forgotten rural lives are in all of this.)
"War Girls" is packed with towering mechs and exciting action sequences and explosions, but it's not remotely like a superhero movie. It's not, ultimately, about heroes, even though the word gets flung around (sometimes mockingly) about certain characters on both sides of an historically-inflected future conflict. In many ways, I was reminded of all the things I loved about Rosaria Munda's recent fantasy book "Fireborne," in which characters often do admirable things but just as often do terrible things, and what makes for friendship in a time of war is an inextricably tangled mess. I was also reminded of the best works of journalistic nonfiction (and nonfiction-adjacent works) I've read, such as Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" and the conflict zone writings of Arundhati Roy. All of these resonances made sense to me when I read Onyebuchi's afterward for "War Girls," wherein he references Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alexis Okeowo, Sandra Uwiringiyimana, Ishmael Beah, and Uzodinma Iweala, among others. That Onyebuchi also drew from his mother's personal recollections of the Nigerian Civil War speaks both for the emotional impact of this book and the sheer scale of the conflict that inspired "War Girls." I was drawn in from the first page to the last, and now that I've set the book aside for a minute to think about it, I find myself more emotional than ever.
This is a book with sticking power. Sure, the science fictional aspects are fun and all. But the power of fiction, regardless of genre, is its ability to open doors into worlds and lives that would otherwise remain somewhere vaguely over there and unreachable. And "War Girls" opened a door for me, jammed in a doorstop, and dared me to learn how to see better, understand better, and be better. Amazing.