A review by mschlat
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi
3.0
My short take: a literary sf novel that foregrounds the inequities facing people of color (especially African Americans) in a somewhat post-apocalyptic setting with more emphasis on following characters than advancing plot.
My longer take: I grappled with this during and after the read. Onyebuchi is using a setting in the near future where many people (most of them white) have departed Earth for the Colonies (i.e., space stations), and the Earth (or at least the United States) has faced a deeply damaging environmental catastrophe, leaving the remaining inhabitants (most of them people of color) in constant danger of radiation sickness and death.
But, in many ways, this is a novel about current inequities and not future ones. Part of that emphasis is seen in Onyebuchi's use of language, which is almost totally contemporary. (I was thrown off early by a character talking about 'gramming their experience.) But much of that focus on current inequities is highlighted by what the characters are concerned about: police brutality, the lack of jobs and resources, and the possibility of gentrification as whites return to Earth. I've read lots of sf where future concerns stand in as metaphors for current ones, but this feels like current concerns propelled to the future.
And it's not a straightforward novel. (I've seen lots of reviews that say that the author doesn't hold your hand, and I agree with that.) It reads to me more as a collection of short stories woven together than a typical novel, with the third quarter of the book focused away from the other parts as it tells two lightly connected stories: one about a prison riot that turns into a prison takeover, and another about a federal marshall searching for the body of a dead boy in order to prove a murder charge against a white supremacist. Those stories were fascinating, but I didn't always see the connective tissue.
In the end, I liked pieces of the work more than the work as a whole.
My longer take: I grappled with this during and after the read. Onyebuchi is using a setting in the near future where many people (most of them white) have departed Earth for the Colonies (i.e., space stations), and the Earth (or at least the United States) has faced a deeply damaging environmental catastrophe, leaving the remaining inhabitants (most of them people of color) in constant danger of radiation sickness and death.
But, in many ways, this is a novel about current inequities and not future ones. Part of that emphasis is seen in Onyebuchi's use of language, which is almost totally contemporary. (I was thrown off early by a character talking about 'gramming their experience.) But much of that focus on current inequities is highlighted by what the characters are concerned about: police brutality, the lack of jobs and resources, and the possibility of gentrification as whites return to Earth. I've read lots of sf where future concerns stand in as metaphors for current ones, but this feels like current concerns propelled to the future.
And it's not a straightforward novel. (I've seen lots of reviews that say that the author doesn't hold your hand, and I agree with that.) It reads to me more as a collection of short stories woven together than a typical novel, with the third quarter of the book focused away from the other parts as it tells two lightly connected stories: one about a prison riot that turns into a prison takeover, and another about a federal marshall searching for the body of a dead boy in order to prove a murder charge against a white supremacist. Those stories were fascinating, but I didn't always see the connective tissue.
In the end, I liked pieces of the work more than the work as a whole.