Goliath

October 1, 2021

In the 2050s, those with the means are leaving the big U.S. cities for colonial outposts in space, and the infrastructure left behind is sinking groundward as materials are pilfered for transport to the colonies. For anyone who remains, that means scrambling to survive A Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Award finalist and Alex and New England Book Award winner, Onyebuchi weaves together the stories including a space dweller seeking his beloved in New Haven, civil servants trying to rescue what's left of the cities, and a marshal wondering if justice is possible any longer to examine issues of race, class, and gentrification. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

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November 8, 2021
A desolated Earth is the vivid backdrop for this harrowing, visionary sci-fi novel from Onyebuchi (Riot Baby). A highly politicized viral pandemic has divided America, and conservatives who resent regulations leave the planet to establish the first space colony. Radiation and pollution due to climate change soon cause wealthy, privileged parties to follow to the Colonies in a drastic, extraterrestrial form of white flight, leaving the disadvantaged abandoned on the hazardous Earth with little help. Decades later, Jonathan and David, a white couple from the Colonies, move to New Haven with romantic ideas of starting a new life on Earth. The perspectives of Black New Haven laborers Linc and Bishop form a sharp contrast, and they know better than to idealize their circumstances. These are just a few of the large cast Onyebuchi cycles through in a collection of narrative vignettes that allows readers glimpses of a land plagued by the persistent nightmares of racism, gentrification, radiation poisoning, and escalating street violence. Onyebuchi’s biblically inspired cautionary tale offers a hauntingly beautiful portrait of the decaying planet, though the mosaic structure and blurring timelines can sometimes take readers out of the narrative as they work to piece events together. Still, the emotions are raw and real, and Onyebuchi doesn’t shy away from the more heart-wrenching moments. It’s urgent, gorgeous work.

December 15, 2021
Onyebuchi's first full-length novel for adults is a fascinating combination of parable and prophecy. Told in both prose vignettes and epistolary passages, through newspaper articles and diary entries and life experience, the novel weaves together stories of a ruined Earth in the 2050s. Anyone who is affluent enough can escape the dying planet and head to the Colonies in space. The bricks of the old world are salvaged by stackers and sent to build the structures of the new. Goliath focuses on the poor Black and Latinx people who are left behind, or those who returned to Earth to gentrify what's left. But this bleak setting has moments of humor and surprise. The stackers in particular create a strong sense of family and love, even when they're teasing each other or running from danger. And their discovery of horses in the middle of the wasteland gives the book a sense of wonder. Recommended for fans of postapocalyptic literature like Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) or Chang-rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea (2014). HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Award winner Onyebuchi's adult debut is sure to garner a lot of attention with comparisons to Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven (2014).

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January 14, 2022

In Onyebuchi's (Riot Baby) adult novel debut, the Earth is no longer the home to all of humankind. Space colonies have been developed, and wealthy and privileged people have left Earth's cities--and their fellow humans--behind. Some of those who stayed on Earth are trying to create a safe existence among of the planet's decaying infrastructure, while others are disassembling the homes and buildings left behind and preparing to ship them to the space colonies so that the wealthy Colony-dwellers can enjoy their comfortable existences inside quaint, historic brick and stone mansions. This scene on Earth is seen through the eyes of several characters, including Jonathan, who hopes that coming to New Haven, CT, will somehow reconnect him to his Colony lover David; and Linc, who demolishes old homes to send their bricks to the Colony and wonders if he can build hope for the future. Violent encounters and a kidnapping bring more characters into the story, and the plot lines are woven together by Onyebuchi's vivid worldbuilding and realistic voices. VERDICT Onyebuchi's novel is a full sensory experience of language and imagery, set in a near-future world where race, class, and gentrification still drive conflict, both on Earth and in the stars.--Kristi Chadwick

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.