The Book of Phoenix
The Book of Phoenix is a 2015 science fantasy novel by Nigerian American author Nnedi Okorafor. It is a stand alone prequel to "Who Fears Death", it won the 2018 Kurd Laßwitz Preis for Best Foreign Fiction Book and was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Background. Nnedi Okorafor first started the novel as a short story titled "The Book of Phoenix" published in 2011 by Clarkesworld, then as a novella titled "African Sunrise" published in 2012 by Subterranean Press. Plot. The novel opens with a Nuru man, Sunuteel finding an ancient cave of  computers before listening to an audio file called "The Book of Phoenix." Phoenix is an accelerated biological organism created by the LifeGen Technologies and lives in Tower 7 Manhattan with other SpeciMen. She and Mmuo escape and destroy the tower freeing Seven after her lover, Saeed death. Phoenix dies, regenerate a few days later and is given an alien seed by the backbone to return to Ghana. Phoenix is being chased by the Big Eyes and while on the run she develops wings and with the aid of Seven flies to Wulugu, Ghana where she secretly plants the seed. In  Ghana, she is given the name Okore and she lives peaceful with the residents. A year later the Big Eye shows up in Wulugu under the disguise of investors and kills Kofi, her lover just before she burns. A reawaken Phoenix gives herself to the Big Eyes and is taken back to a tower in America. she escapes and reunites with Mmuo and Saeed. Together they destroys Tower 1 freeing all the inmates. Phoenix is deemed a terrorist, she access the Big Eye files in the "Library of Congress," learn more about the corporation and herself before she ￼￼ heads to Tower 4 along with Saeed and Mmuo. They successfully frees the inmates and finds HeLa, but they are attacked by the Big Eye. Phoenix burns and kills several Big Eye members before she dies. Phoenix regenerates and take a trip to visit her surrogate mother just before the woman die of cancer. Returning from the trip, she finds out that Mmuo is dead and Saeed has been taken away by the Big Eyes. In a might of anger and rage she over heat like the sun and explode causing an apocalypse to fall on Earth. Saeed survives, leaves  the deadland of America and walks to the ruins of West Africa. Using phoenix feather and a machine, he extracts her memory which is sent to an unknown database center, before placing it on his skin to extract his memory. The novel ends with Sunuteel misinterpreting the Book of Phoenix and rewriting a wrong version of the story full of his own ideas which is used as the basis for the justification of the enslavement of the Okeke people by the Nuru people. Reception. The book received generally positive reactions from reviewers and readers. A review from the "Locus Magazine  states that "The Book of Phoenix is actually a more playful and experimental novel than "Who Fears Death", and in a weird and unsettling way, it's a lot of fun".