African Fantasy with a western bite

Oluwole Talabi, born on 28 februari 1986, is a Nigerian speculative fiction writer and editor, besides being an engineer. He is considered among the Third Generation of Nigerian Writers, who are emerging writers of Nigerian Literature. These writers are influenced by politics, a preceding club of writers (Mbari Club) and the western world. These writers create new genres and methods that deal with class, violence, abuse and racism.

Wole Talabi has short published works from 2013 and onwards. He won the Nommo Award for short story (speculative fiction by Africans) in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2017, 2020 and 2022, and won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in short form in 2022. He was nominated for Locus Award for Short Story in 2022.

I don't know why, but the cover of the book already gives me an African feel.

Browsing his list of published short stories we see in these titles two characters we also meet in this story: Shigidi and Nneoma. Shigidi being a nightmare god and Nneoma being a succubus, a sort of sex demon.

In Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon is the world split into two worlds, our world and the spirit world. The spirit world is where the gods live and work, and mimicks our world in that faith is also seen as a business, and seems to be the main and only business. In this business faith is sold to the gods who need faith, by the gods doing favors or jobs for the ones giving them faith. The gods with the most faith are a sort of CEO for their spirit company.

Shigidi and Nneoma are free spirits, but both are in debt of a spirit company and to cancel the debt are asked to get something from the British Museum in London. Getting the item involves them getting into the museum. but then need to leave using a portal to the spirit world. That portal can only be opened from the spirit world and so they need someone whom they trust enough for that job. And the clock is ticking, for the heist needs to take place that same night.

The story jumps from time to time between chapters, sometimes this is a short jump (a few days or hours), but there are some very long jumps. Although reading the chapter already gave an impression of the jump, I sometimes needed to read the chapter heading from the earlier chapter to have that really connect.

During the story all about the characters is revealed bit by bit, this includes (almost) everyone involved in the heist.

The story is very well written and gives some insight in African culture. During the story African words (and names) are used throughout. Mostly I needed to look those words up, because it could be African clothing or a mundane object. That did not put me out of the story, but actually added to the experience.

It took me a few months to obtain the (paper) book (that might now be different), but some of the chapters also seem to have chapters in them, but they are not seperate chapters. I am unsure if this is meant like that or if it is a misprint, because later on other breaks are used in the chapters. Personally I do not mind that, but it does mean that some chapters are really long, and I like shorter chapters. Don't let that withhold you from reading this story, because it is a good story.