Like Thunder: The Desert Magician's Duology: Book Two

Like Thunder is a just-released sequel to Shadow Speaker. The Shadow Speaker is a quite old novel by Nnedi Okorafor, but an updated version came out 2-Oct-2023. Shadow Speaker ends in 2074. Earth has become connected to other worlds, so that travel from one world to another is possible. Ette, the chief of the humans living in one of those other worlds, Ginen, hates Earth and wants to destroy its peoples. At the end of Shadow Speaker Chief Ette is forced to sign a magically binding three-year truce with Earth representatives.Like Thunder takes place mostly in 2077. You will notice that 2077-2074 = 3, so the truce is about to expire and does actually expire in the course of Like Thunder. Chief Ette's genocidal ambitions have not cooled during that time. If you have met humans, you will not be surprised to learn that Ette manages to find people to help him among the people of Earth.The point of view character of Shadow Speaker was Ejii Ubaid, who is, in fact, a shadow speaker -- a kind of juju seer. Her best friend, whom we met in that book, is Dikéogu Obidimkpa. Like Thunder is told by Dikéogu -- it is ostensibly a transcript of a series of audio recordings he made. Dikéogu is the scion of a wealthy Nigerian family, who rejected him because he is not normal -- he is a Stormbringer. He controls rain and lightning and thunder, and it is he whom the cover depicts. Dikéogu is not OK. He has not learned to control his gifts.Genocidal war makes a powerful background story. Like Thunder is, in my opinion, a better story than Shadow Speaker, because the plot is less random and more compelling.Do you need to read Shadow Speaker before Like Thunder? No, not really. There is enough relevant background here to make the earlier book unnecessary. Should you? In my opinion, no, it is not worth your time. I did not really enjoy Shadow Speaker.I thank NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Like Thunder. This review expresses my honest opinions.