Review of “Mother of Invention” (2018)
Nnedi Okorafor (writer).
Read in 2020.
In a pollen storm, a heavily pregnant allergic ex-mistress squatter gives birth in the company of the smart home she occupies.
A mix of good ideas and bad ones. I like the extrapolative ecological-feminist-Nigerian setup. I don’t like that it becomes both Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) and a cautionary tale of AI gaining more human interests and personality traits as it transcends its original limitations. It is ultimately too much of a fairy tale, but it’s fun.