Awakened by Kelechi Okafor

"If we examine the actions of those who do claim to possess a soul, we must ask ourselves- what good has their governance done for the world so far?"

In a near-future world where your every waking thoughts and needs are governed by an AI chip implanted in humans, but where power & autonomy remain pretty much in the past, journalist Pels desires to have more creative freedom in respect of the stories she covers. The story she desperately wants to shed more light on is the unexplained/suspicious deaths/disappearances of young Black kids. Meanwhile her boss brushes off the story as race-baiting, & instead sends her on a trip to cover the ancient Spirit Vine rituals in Benin. Will the Spirit Vine rituals awaken a new purpose in Pels?

This was a good read! It provides readers with many critical think pieces around our use & the enforcement of AI in our day-to-day lives. Currently we use AI in a way that many may not conceive as being detrimental, but as we enter this new-age of AI dominance, many are now able to see how sinister & pervasive AI is coming to be, i.e. mass redundancies in companies, as we maximise our use of streamlined processes at the hands of AI.

Irobot was released circa 20 years ago + I remember as much as I loved the film that I was troubled by the ideas of robots becoming an integrated part of society. Consciousness was a huge focus in this film, not only of robots, but of humans. I loved that Kelechi was able to draw on this with the humanoid Mayor of London candidate in this story.

I also liked the inclusion of the disappearances of Black kids around or near bodies of water. With the Met continually disregarding these stories IRL it was great that a spotlight was put on these untold stories.

There were a few elements of the story that didn’t work for me, namely the main character - she felt juvenile & not well fleshed out imo.

Other than that, Awakened is a perfect read for fans of The Eternals (Marvel) & Black Panther.

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