War Girls

Lore & Background

Over the course of the novel, Ify becomes a student in Abuja, while Onyii pilots mechs for Biafra. The Biafran military seeks to expose an illegal partnership between Nigeria and the Commonwealth Space Colonies. After a ceasefire, Onyii and her comrade Chinelo fall in love, but Ify hunts Onyii after learning Onyii killed her parents. The novel culminates in a confrontation where Onyii kills Daren, and the two women flee through a nuclear wasteland called the Redlands. Onyii helps Ify escape to the Space Colonies, staying behind to die from radiation-induced cancer.

Reader's Guide

War Girls is significant as an Africanfuturist work of climate fiction that links colonialism to environmental destruction and nuclear warfare. It critiques how Western powers escape culpability for rendering Earth uninhabitable by migrating to space colonies, where they reconstitute social and racial hierarchies. The novel explores posthumanism through augmented humans and synthetic beings called abds, blurring the line between human and machine. Its depiction of a brutal civil war intensified by science-fictional technologies comments on the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized nations. The work has been noted for its themes of war, colonialism, and the consequences of technological exploitation.

Did You Know?

• The novel features a device called an Accent, a small ball placed in the ear that allows hacking into cyberized organisms.
• The character Onyii is referred to by enemies as the 'Demon of Biafra' due to her mech-piloting skills.
• The setting includes a nuclear wasteland called the Redlands, through which characters flee.
• The novel depicts synthetic humans called abds, programmed to protect their owners.