"Lost Ark Dreaming" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

[Hana]

Sorry, I started reading this this weekend... I ran out of things to read so I'm early!

I was a big fan of this book, it reminded me a lot of a class I took in college about "Cli-fi"

1. Worldbuilding----------
In the world of Lost Ark Dreaming, maternal water goddess Yemoja has reclaimed the sea after climate change caused sea levels to rise. Yemoja and her children preach a religion of free all knowing—with the conch shell whispering the secrets of the world to those who hold it to their ear, “..the tales of the Children of Yemoja must be tucked into the Queen Conch. If a body wishes to be reminded, the Queen Conch may be retrieved, and will freely reveal her secrets...” (Yekini 12).

In contrast to Yemoja and her children, the citizens of the tower (“towerzens”) worship with absolute loyalty a man, a rich one, who doesn’t seem to care much about the world, much less the operation of the tower or its citizens’ wellbeing. Okungbowa writes, “Yekini wondered how this man knew so little about his own tower” (Yekini 7). In addition to this, knowledge is not freely disseminated in the towers—the novel has interjections of classified documents, and the novel mentions that even mid analysts are not allowed to access most data.

The novum in this novel is the megatower, which is employed as a means to explore the way modern “Western” society continues to oppress the masses at the benefit of the few. This used in contrast to Yoruba spirituality depicts a message warning of the danger suppressing Nigerian (and other native) spirituality in favor of Western religion and socioeconomic policies. Importantly, the author does not specify racial dichotomy in his characters—pointing out oppressed peoples’ complicity in the oppression of their own in the towers.

2. Characters----------
The characters fell a bit flat for me—the novel just wasn’t long enough for me to feel that there was a real “redemption” arc.

The author does use characterization to expand upon the worldbuilding of the universe a lot, though. For example, Tuoyo has a wife despite being a woman. This novel does not take place that far out from our present day—thus the author uses this characterization to envision a more tolerant Nigeria to different sexualities.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Okungbowa uses the character Ngozi to explore the theme of complicity—as Ngozi entered the tower as a refugee yet upholds exclusionary views through his job.

3. What worked/didn’t work----------
The novum of the tower was something I felt worked well in this novel. This theme reminds me lots of Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts, where inhabitants with dark skin live on the lower decks of a ship. Only, this tower is not divided upon racial lines, but economic ones. Overall, the effect is similar though—that humans create divisions on arbitrary means.

I also loved the addition of Yoruba mythology throughout the novel as a contrast to capitalism and Christianity. Subversion of Christianity seems to be common theme in lots of Cli-Fi books I’ve read and is always something I enjoy interacting with. (See: Gun Island, Appleseed, The Children’s Bible, Parable of the Sower).

One of my “didn’t works” is the length of the novel. I think it could have been longer. But I went into it expecting a novella and was not disappointed.

4. Other thoughts----------
For some reason, I feel like I have read quite a handful of reads where sea-creatures or mermaids function as feminist symbols, and I feel like this book was similar with the Child. Though the Child is genderless, I still feel like there is some connection with the divine feminine in Yemoja. Additionally, Okungbowa doesn’t explicitly gender the child as a man, so yeah…

Additional readings with this mermaids theme:
Each to Each (short story)
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi..., The Deep by Rivers Solomon

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Discussion questions:
1. What do you think the author is saying mythology's role will be in a future ravaged by climate change?
2. How do you feel about the author's narrative style? Do you feel that the diction style (I would say dreamy) contributes or harms the messaging of the story?
3. What is the author implying is a "solution" to climate change's impact upon humanity through this book?

[lanlynk]

1. World. I thought the underwater civilization and belief system were imaginative. I wanted to see a closer, more detailed look at life in this world. Much of it seemed so cryptic. The creation myth was intriguing--how in the beginning, some towerzens were "Quickened" from drowning and became Children of Yemoja. After reading about this, I hoped to see the return of Tuoyo's wife as a Quickened being.

The Queen Conch as vehicle for history and Yemoja religion was interesting. Being able to connect the shell to the towerzen's media system in order to broadcast its secrets was a creative idea. I thought of the Conch as a kind of bio-device storage system.

The tower society with caste levels and powerful overlords was more typical of dystopian fiction. The Prime reminded me of George Orwell's Big Brother. Tower information was not freely given to every towerzen as the Queen Conch's knowledge was to the Children. The Uppers' cold indifference towards people living in the lower levels was chilling. I found it difficult to accept the loss of all those drowned in that purposeful flooding. I kept expecting some sort of rescue.

2. Characters. I enjoyed the various characters and their backstories. Each of them had their own prejudices, fears, talents, and strengths. But again, I wanted to see more of the Children, get to know their culture.

3. Worked or Didn't. I also thought the book was too short to completely develop this complex world. I felt a lot of the Yemoja life, beliefs, and creatures themselves were obscurely described. The mythology was very mystical. I liked that the Children were unique, but so much seemed surreal, not fully conceivable.

4. Overall. The author did a great job of creating an otherworldly atmosphere in the story, but I wanted more specific details, something concrete to help me actually experience this world.

[Edwin]

I'm going to be a bit of a dissenter here and say that I found this novella to be just OK.

With regards to the world-building, I felt that there was a real disharmony between the dystopian hard climate fiction that the author was trying to convey and the surreal and fantastical elements he introduced with the Children of Yemoja. It was creative and interesting, but didn’t work for me, maybe because the book was simply too short to fully explore this.

The tower with its social class assignations by level reminded me of Hugh Howey’s Silo, and felt a little formulaic and heavy-handed.

The characters I found to be interesting but thought Yekini and Tuoyo seemed one sided and Ngozi’s character inconsistent. I think I understand what the author was trying to do with each of them, but this too just didn’t work for me.

[Oleksandr]

For me this book was an engineering nightmare on so many levels, starting from the fact that all modern skyscrapers are built as an internal metal skeleton and thin and light walls - thick walls are too heavy. However, thin walls won't keep water away and ending with on one hand sealed levels, on the other - a number of elements that penetrate all levels - lifts, stairs, waste disposal.

Moreover, not enough thought was given to daily operation - water supply, canalization, air movement as well as for dramatic purposes population is both too great and too dispersed - we are told that on a drowned level thousands (!) will die and at the same level when characters found a wounded person no on was around - if it is so deserted, were are those thousands.

[Ian]

There were some interesting ideas here but if you looked too closely into the world that was being built it not really hang together. The social side with its different levels I thought did work quite well.

[Aryan UK]

Yeah, I share the thoughts of many readers here. There was much left to be desired in terms of world and lore building. Also, I felt that the parts which I think were supposed to have deeper meanings (such as the connections to conch ones and the All-Infinite odes) were just simple tribal ideas, albeit positively meaningful, wrapped in vague language. I should e-mail the author to clarify for what ideas he was trying to express.

[Tamara]

I 100% agree with Edwin on the world building. It felt almost like the book changed genres mid-story, it was jarring. I liked the characters, though the book had too many characters and too few pages to fully develop them.
Overall I would say the book was OK, but I would have preferred if the tone had stayed consistent.

Did anyone here listen to the audiobook? How were you with the accents? As a non-native English speaker, I found it hard to adjust to them - mostly I had difficulties with words that I only know in their written form and hadn't had the chance to hear/say before.

[Shawnie]

I listened the audio and liked the narration, didn't have any trouble with the accents, Aramat. I found the writing easy. I loved the concept.

I had a difficult time putting the Children together in my mind. We aren't 'very' far in the future so how can they have come about already? Or were they already living in the ocean?

I also struggled with the logistics of life in a tower, constantly thinking the structure would have degraded, and how do they manage air, growing food, waste, etc?

I think I wanted a monser book. :)