Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby is an incandescent Afrofuturist science fiction novella that is so fleet-of-foot as it sprints from one character and time and setting to another that it’s dizzying, whirling the reader through fierce bravery in the face of dystopia that uplifts and enrages simultaneously.
Ella was raised in LA, in a neighborhood where gangbangers do drive-bys and the cops inflict terror with impunity. Ella has a power, one she barely understands, a power that shows her the future, and the future she sees is so often violent and terrifying.
Ella’s little brother is Kev, born on the evening of the Rodney King uprising, a “riot baby” who barely remembers being little in California, who thinks of New York City’s projects as home.
Ella and Kev live a life of sudden violence and grinding poverty, of overt racism and structural, deep-rooted racism that is, if anything, even worse. As Ella comes into more of her powers — telekenesis, telepathy, dream-walking, mind-reading — their lives are marked by the increasing tempo of racism and the rise of white supremcy and the carceral state, broken windows policing and mass incarceration.
Their lives diverge when Kev lands in Riker’s Island, in a sentence that stretches to years thanks to the penalties he accrues for his failure to be a model prisoner. Meanwhile, Ella is in the world, traversing its empty spaces, learning to use her powers, visiting Kev in Riker’s — sometimes in the visitor’s room, and sometimes in his dreams.
Onyebuchi’s deft handling of the characters and the transitions between them — and the times and places that mark them — are the kind of thing that makes science fiction such a powerful medium, hearkening back to the action-packed, pulp roots of the genre. Add to that Onyebuchi’s vivid characterizations and superb ear for dialog and you’ve got a book that blazes with rage and glory.
Riot Baby [Tochi Onyebuchi/Tor.com]