My thanks to Stars and Saber and NetGalley for a free DRC of "The Nga’phandileh Whisperer"
by Eugen Bacon, a SF Cosmic Horror Novella that feels almost like a folktale. It contains both technological elements, but also traditions and rituals. As a new subgenre, Afro-Irrealism it was fascinating to experience.
It did took me a while to get used to the author's style of writing and the unique narrative of this story, but once I was in, I was in awe with the musicality and rhythm that were offered like a blessing.
Trough the use of the second person, the story of Chant'L becoming a Guardian that is meant to help protect the humanity and the different planets from the beast known as Nga’phandileh. The glimpses in her past, her glorious relationship with her parents and her bursts of magic power helped with the reader getting to get to know the heroine in more depth. While the premise mentions abuse of power, to me it read more like Chant'L having a mental health issue that she was fighting, but not able to control in a few instances.
Overall I loved to be challenged by this reading experience, to get out of my comfort zone. I am aware that this might be even more challenging for people speaking and thinking just in the English language, but I would still highly recommend it to readers that are not afraid to explore new styles of storytelling. At the end there is a useful Glossary and for the worldbuilding terms. I also hope this Novella will be graced with an audiobook, I think its musicality will sound amazing in the hands of a good narrator.

Throughout the past few years I’ve really been pushing myself to expand my boundaries. As a white dude who lives in the Midwest of the United States it’s easy to keep reading the same ol’, same ol’. I could easily read John Grisham, Dan Brown, James Patterson, Lee Child and a few others on repeat, but I found I was bored with reading the same stuff all the time (although sometimes you just gotta read one of those, too).

Earlier this year I read Combat Monsters, a World War II Monster anthology and discovered some new writers, including Eugen Bacon. I loved her take on the material and really enjoyed the perspective on the war from a different continent than Europe. So when I saw a new novella from Bacon, I figured maybe I should take a longer look at her writing.

The Nga’phandeileh Whisperer is a bold and fascinating sci-fi cosmic horror tale that opens up a larger world that Bacon just touches on in this novella. This work is billed as a “Sauútiverse Novella,” which led me down a larger rabbit-hole to the Sauúti Collective. Bacon is one of 10 African writers who have joined together to write fiction in their own shared sci-fi universe. There are a small handful of stories out already in the Sauútiverse. According to their website (www.sauuti.com):
Sauúti is taken from the word “Sauti” which means “voice” in Swahili. This world is a five-planet system orbiting a binary star. This world is rooted deeply in a variety of African mythology, language, and culture. Sauúti weaves in an intricate magic system based on sound, oral traditions and music. It includes science-fiction elements of artificial intelligence and space flight, including both humanoid and non-humanoid creatures. Sauúti is filled with wonder, mystery and magic.

And that description fits Bacon’s The Nga’phandeileh Whisperer well. It is very much a sci-fi story set on an alien world, but the spiritual aspect takes on a magical fantasy side to the story from the perspective of African storytelling and folklore.

Now…this novella could be a tough read for some people -- it’s written in second-person. Eugen Bacon forces the reader to literally become part of the story, feeling the chaos of Chant’l’s life and the desperation she feels. It starts with a fairly steady foundation, but the second-person storytelling makes it feel off and it experiments and plays a lot on the way to the final act of the book. By the time we have about twenty percent left, the second-person perspective feels more comfortable and Chant’l has figured out her life and purpose better so heading into the climax and finale the reader is on firm ground.

What is really rewarding about this book is the prose. Eugen Bacon writes some beautiful passages throughout this novella, littered with evocative and descriptive words that bring you right into the tale. While I read an ebook of The Nga’phandeileh Whisperer, I can’t help but feel that with the right narrator, parts of this book would feel magical. I’m glad I took a chance on Eugen Bacon’s Sauútiverse novella and I imagine I’ll probably try to find some other works set in the same universe in the future.

I believe that, had I read the original series this novella is based upon, I would have a better unnderstanding of the way everything happens in this book. However, the storytelling and writing style in this made for a very confusing and non-memorable experience. The introduction of many different concepts and characters in the first two chapters make for a muddied sense of setting and truly was not pleasurable to read. Unfortunately, this did not work for me.