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Midnight Robber
It's Carnival time, and the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance and pageantry. Masked "Midnight Robbers" waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favourite costume to wear at the festival--until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgivable crime.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth--and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life...and set her free.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth--and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life...and set her free.
356 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2000
314 people are currently reading
12807 people want to read
About the author
Nalo Hopkinson
143 books2,041 followersNalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born writer and editor who lives in Canada. Her science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 597 reviews
July 10, 2016
A rich and vibrant mixture of science fiction and West African/Caribbean folklore, Midnight Robber tells the story of a young girl Tan-Tan growing up on the world Toussaint, populated mostly by the descendants of Haitian colonists. Tan-Tan has a pretty good life at first. Her father Antonio is the mayor of the Cockpit County. Like most people in her colony, her needs are taken care of by Granny Nanny, the uber-computer that controls and takes care her citizens through her Anansi Web, anticipating all needs, monitoring all activity and keeping the peace (mostly). Tan-Tan’s favorite game is playing the Robber King (Queen), a noble bandit from folklore. Soon, however, Tan-Tan’s life is upended when her father is arrested for a horrible crime and he and Tan-Tan are exiled to New Half-Way Tree, an alternate dimension version of Toussaint with no servants, no nanotechnology, no comfort and no law. There, Tan-Tan must discover her own strengths to fight for survival — especially from her own father, who is revealed to be a drunken sexual predator. With the help of the indigenous inhabitants, the douen, Tan-Tan slowly evolves from a scared young girl into her own incarnation of the fabled Robber Queen.
The novel is exceptionally well-crafted. The world-building is fabulous and also a lovely antidote to science fiction where all future worlds seem to be white and European. It isn’t an easy read, partly because the web of perspectives and narrative styles surrounding Tan-Tan’s story take some patience. Also the entire novel is told in a dialect that the characters call Anglopatwa or Creole. I got used to the language quickly enough, but be warned going into the novel that Hopkinson requires the reader to hear her story on its own terms. This is both the novel’s biggest challenge and one of its greatest strengths. I was reminded of books like Clockwork Orange of City of Bohane, (or James Joyce, for that matter) where the language is an integral part of the story.
The novel is exceptionally well-crafted. The world-building is fabulous and also a lovely antidote to science fiction where all future worlds seem to be white and European. It isn’t an easy read, partly because the web of perspectives and narrative styles surrounding Tan-Tan’s story take some patience. Also the entire novel is told in a dialect that the characters call Anglopatwa or Creole. I got used to the language quickly enough, but be warned going into the novel that Hopkinson requires the reader to hear her story on its own terms. This is both the novel’s biggest challenge and one of its greatest strengths. I was reminded of books like Clockwork Orange of City of Bohane, (or James Joyce, for that matter) where the language is an integral part of the story.
April 9, 2024
This is a very very good sci-fi book about trauma and building a new identity.
To really explain you why you should read this, spoilers will need to be used. It takes the book until almost halfway through for the actual point of attack to appear. The problem is that it is impossible to talk in detail about this novel’s second half without talking about its themes, which are… a lot. So before recommending this book, I want to warn as a spoiler:
Tan-Tan, as a protagonist, is fantastically resilient, well-written, and compelling. But as the book starts, she is deeply torn apart by what has happened to her. To deal with what she has experienced, Tan-Tan crafts two separate identities: the good Tan-Tan and the bad Tan-Tan, one that is good and one to escape to in traumatic situations. The Tan-Tan we meet at age sixteen is not happy. She has been taught from age nine that she is bad, evil, This compartmentalization and splitting of identity is what allows Tan-Tan to survive. She even crafts yet another identity, Robber Queen. The Robber Queen’s words speak against mistreatment. When stories begin to spread about the Robber Queen, Tan-Tan barely can believe them. She has been so broken down; how can she be anything like the Robber Queen of myth and legend?
Tan-Tan learns, over time, to allow her Good Tan-Tan self, her Robber Queen self, to become not a persona but a part of her. This comes first and foremost from acceptance. In her many months alone, as she becomes close friends with Abitefa, the Douen woman she meets. She saves a Rolling Calf pup, one whose mother she has accidentally hurt: this helps her to remember that she is able to love and to care, that she is not evil. And she reunites with Melonhead, her childhood best friend. To Melonhead, she initially feels the need to perform something uncorrupted, and is ashamed of having been raped—“shit” (302), she says when it slips out—yet when he figures out, in what she has purposefully not said, he simply reaches for her hand. It is through these connections of love and kindness that she has learned that what has happened is not her fault, not something she must punish herself for. Bad Tan-Tan is not bad; she has done nothing.
There is a lot more to say about this book because I really liked this book. The ending made me cry, in a very good way. I really like the setting of the novel and the Douen culture: this feels like a single story in a very wide world, which is a type of sff I really love.
I also liked how Midnight Robber uses a science fiction and fantastical (this feels like a blend of both) setting to explore themes that echo real life. The sci-fi tech of the world is removed, but not an evil force: instead, a benevolent one. In the same 2002 interview, Hopkinson said this:
“As a young reader, mimetic fiction (fiction that mimics reality) left me feeling unsatisfied. The general message that I got from it was "life sucks, sometimes it's not too bad, but mostly people are mean to each other, then they die." But, rightly or wrongly, I felt as though I'd already figured that out. I felt that I didn't need to read fiction in order to experience it. But folktales and fables and the old epic tales (Homer's Iliad, for instance) felt as though they lived in a different dimension.”
Midnight Robber is written in Caribbean vernacular, which some reviewers seem to have taken issue with. Within a few pages, this language becomes easy to read—the prose, though complex, is incredibly well written. Hopkinson writes primarily in Trinidadian; for Midnight Robber, she purposefully blended this with Jamaican and Guyanese. Worldbuilding terms, meanwhile, have origins in various cultures: the word ‘Douen’ comes from a term for Caribbean children who die before their naming ceremonies. It's easy to discount the level of thought that goes into this writing style. Don't. Metaphorically, in Midnight Robber, this blend of dialects functions as the language of a people. In a 2002 interview, Hopkinson noted that she believes Midnight Robber could work in Yiddish, because: “Yiddish, near as I can tell, carries the historical sense of being the language of a people whose diasporic spread has at times been forced upon them, and it also, I think, has the sense of being a language ‘of the people.’” It is this that matters about Hopkinson’s language.
I think it is very easy to read literature by Caribbean authors, written in dialogues some may consider 'other' or 'exotic', and view it through that prism and lens. But though the language of this book is certainly noteworthy, and an extremely important part of its message, to afford mention only to such qualities is beyond the pale.
It is an excellent story and an incredible discussion of trauma, and Tan-Tan's character development is very good. And the ending made me cry.
TW:
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To really explain you why you should read this, spoilers will need to be used. It takes the book until almost halfway through for the actual point of attack to appear. The problem is that it is impossible to talk in detail about this novel’s second half without talking about its themes, which are… a lot. So before recommending this book, I want to warn as a spoiler:
Tan-Tan, as a protagonist, is fantastically resilient, well-written, and compelling. But as the book starts, she is deeply torn apart by what has happened to her. To deal with what she has experienced, Tan-Tan crafts two separate identities: the good Tan-Tan and the bad Tan-Tan, one that is good and one to escape to in traumatic situations. The Tan-Tan we meet at age sixteen is not happy. She has been taught from age nine that she is bad, evil, This compartmentalization and splitting of identity is what allows Tan-Tan to survive. She even crafts yet another identity, Robber Queen. The Robber Queen’s words speak against mistreatment. When stories begin to spread about the Robber Queen, Tan-Tan barely can believe them. She has been so broken down; how can she be anything like the Robber Queen of myth and legend?
Tan-Tan learns, over time, to allow her Good Tan-Tan self, her Robber Queen self, to become not a persona but a part of her. This comes first and foremost from acceptance. In her many months alone, as she becomes close friends with Abitefa, the Douen woman she meets. She saves a Rolling Calf pup, one whose mother she has accidentally hurt: this helps her to remember that she is able to love and to care, that she is not evil. And she reunites with Melonhead, her childhood best friend. To Melonhead, she initially feels the need to perform something uncorrupted, and is ashamed of having been raped—“shit” (302), she says when it slips out—yet when he figures out, in what she has purposefully not said, he simply reaches for her hand. It is through these connections of love and kindness that she has learned that what has happened is not her fault, not something she must punish herself for. Bad Tan-Tan is not bad; she has done nothing.
There is a lot more to say about this book because I really liked this book. The ending made me cry, in a very good way. I really like the setting of the novel and the Douen culture: this feels like a single story in a very wide world, which is a type of sff I really love.
I also liked how Midnight Robber uses a science fiction and fantastical (this feels like a blend of both) setting to explore themes that echo real life. The sci-fi tech of the world is removed, but not an evil force: instead, a benevolent one. In the same 2002 interview, Hopkinson said this:
“As a young reader, mimetic fiction (fiction that mimics reality) left me feeling unsatisfied. The general message that I got from it was "life sucks, sometimes it's not too bad, but mostly people are mean to each other, then they die." But, rightly or wrongly, I felt as though I'd already figured that out. I felt that I didn't need to read fiction in order to experience it. But folktales and fables and the old epic tales (Homer's Iliad, for instance) felt as though they lived in a different dimension.”
Midnight Robber is written in Caribbean vernacular, which some reviewers seem to have taken issue with. Within a few pages, this language becomes easy to read—the prose, though complex, is incredibly well written. Hopkinson writes primarily in Trinidadian; for Midnight Robber, she purposefully blended this with Jamaican and Guyanese. Worldbuilding terms, meanwhile, have origins in various cultures: the word ‘Douen’ comes from a term for Caribbean children who die before their naming ceremonies. It's easy to discount the level of thought that goes into this writing style. Don't. Metaphorically, in Midnight Robber, this blend of dialects functions as the language of a people. In a 2002 interview, Hopkinson noted that she believes Midnight Robber could work in Yiddish, because: “Yiddish, near as I can tell, carries the historical sense of being the language of a people whose diasporic spread has at times been forced upon them, and it also, I think, has the sense of being a language ‘of the people.’” It is this that matters about Hopkinson’s language.
I think it is very easy to read literature by Caribbean authors, written in dialogues some may consider 'other' or 'exotic', and view it through that prism and lens. But though the language of this book is certainly noteworthy, and an extremely important part of its message, to afford mention only to such qualities is beyond the pale.
It is an excellent story and an incredible discussion of trauma, and Tan-Tan's character development is very good. And the ending made me cry.
TW:
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October 22, 2021
Bleak, brutal, compelling, captivating, mesmerizing, terrific!! Phenomenal worldbuilding. Great pacing. Skillful characterizations. Horrific storyline done with tremendous care. Hopkinson does not shy away from the ugly side of human nature and its inherent trauma but she also understands the human ability to heal and flourish. And wow can this woman write!! Trigger warnings:
4+ Stars
Listened to Audible. Robin Miles as usual put in a brilliant performance!!
4+ Stars
Listened to Audible. Robin Miles as usual put in a brilliant performance!!
February 10, 2017
Great book, even if it took me a bit to flow into the creole, but right off the bat it starts and finishes with hard-SF fully mixing with Anansi-tale.
What comes first? The Anansi-tale or the life of the Midnight Robber Tam-Tam? Who knows, we? Either way, both help define and refine and divine the tale.
Who is the Midnight Robber? She be the one to save two for every life she take. She's the myth of she who punishes the wicked and help those in need. She's the wronged who repays in both the good and the bad, the one who lives in slavery and delivers from it.
I'll be honest, it took a bit of effort to start my mind flowing in the right direction for the novel, and later, even when I knew what spoilers there be to make my heart bleed, it almost threw me to the ground to kick he side until he vomit. A few times, I even wanted to quit the novel. I couldn't take what Tam-Tam took. But I suffered through what she suffered through, saw her grow strong, and in her strength, I gained strength.
Things can get very dark, indeed, but there is light.
Eventually, there is hope and redemption, and the novel is good. The love is good.
Maybe as I read more novels of this type, I'll enjoy Creole more. As it is right now, I'm stuck in limbo. Seen? The language is beautiful and strange, but the poetry is clear and bright.
I'm so glad I was turned on to this form.
What comes first? The Anansi-tale or the life of the Midnight Robber Tam-Tam? Who knows, we? Either way, both help define and refine and divine the tale.
Who is the Midnight Robber? She be the one to save two for every life she take. She's the myth of she who punishes the wicked and help those in need. She's the wronged who repays in both the good and the bad, the one who lives in slavery and delivers from it.
I'll be honest, it took a bit of effort to start my mind flowing in the right direction for the novel, and later, even when I knew what spoilers there be to make my heart bleed, it almost threw me to the ground to kick he side until he vomit. A few times, I even wanted to quit the novel. I couldn't take what Tam-Tam took. But I suffered through what she suffered through, saw her grow strong, and in her strength, I gained strength.
Things can get very dark, indeed, but there is light.
Eventually, there is hope and redemption, and the novel is good. The love is good.
Maybe as I read more novels of this type, I'll enjoy Creole more. As it is right now, I'm stuck in limbo. Seen? The language is beautiful and strange, but the poetry is clear and bright.
I'm so glad I was turned on to this form.
March 9, 2018
Another school book this semester hahaha gotta love school. Loved the Caribbean influences and hard topics she delved into but overall the story didn’t appeal to me nor keep me interested
April 3, 2016
This book has a central issue to it without which it really can't be meaningfully discussed. It is a spoiler to something that doesn't start until about 40% in the book, and frankly, had I known that this was the subject of the book I never would have picked it up. I'm kind of glad I did though.
I would recommend you skip the remainder of this review if you don't want to read the spoiler, because I'm going to proceed as if you're aware of it. Sorry, I don't want to put the whole review under spoilers because you need to read this explanation.
Toussaint is a planet that has been colonized by people of Caribbean descent and it maintains the Caribbean-speech and culture from Earth with lots of believable additions. It's a post-scarcity civilization with ubiquitous AI surveillance and robot labor. No humans need to work although some do. Antonio, the mayor of the local city, and his wife Ione have a fractious relationship built around pointless grabs for attention, drama, cheating and basically being idiots. This eventually leads to serious criminal charges against Antonio when he kills one of Ione's lovers. One of the fates possible for criminals is to be shoved through a dimensional wall into an alternative Toussaint, called Half-Way Tree, and rather than wait for a trial or sentence, Antonio opts to kidnap his daughter Tan-Tan and jump to Toussaint without any equipment or provisions.
Half-Way Tree is a much more primitive world than Toussaint but it has friendly and peaceful locals and a variety of settlements created by the people sent through from the other world. It's a tough life, but Tan-Tan finds happiness there with friends and surprisingly, family.
Until her ninth birthday. Cue events in the spoiler tags above.
The second half of the book is about Tan-Tan, a 16 year old girl, pregnant with an incestuous rape baby and convinced that she is a murderer. She is pursued beyond all reason for her "crime" and she brings disaster on the people that help her, but she has been given a "curse" that guides her through her life from that point.
For every life she takes, she must save two.
And thus the Midnight Robber, Tan-Tan the Robber Queen is born.
Ok, I loved this. It's about a subject I find personally disturbing, but if you're going to read a book about child rape, this is probably the one to read. The emotional impact of it is not glossed over. Tan-Tan hates what her father is doing, but she still loves him. Her thoughts around this and her own reaction to the abuse are brilliantly set out and makes complete sense in terms of abuse survivors. Then her guilt over killing her father is heartbreaking.
The world-building is amazing for both of these worlds, and the aliens and alien ecology are brilliantly set out as well. Sprinkled throughout the story are Caribbean-style Anansi stories that have been merged with the myths springing up around Tan-Tan's own actions as the Robber Queen, a sort of vigilante executor of justice in these rough penal colonies. So one section is the depressing reality of Tan-Tan living rough as an outcast, and then there's a Tan-Tan story which is obviously a tall tale, and then you're back to fine-grained reality only some of the things that happened in the tall tale actually really happened.
And all through in the background you're getting a narrative of social construction, choices and community. It's just wonderful with so many layers to work through and hardly anything to gripe about. Ok, I got called Mr Grumpy Pants for my commentary on Planetfall, so I need to live up to that a bit. The only thing I will gripe about is that I'd like to see a bit more about where it goes from the end of this book. The douen (the aliens) are just sort of left where they were and I'd like to see where their evolving relationship with the humans will go. There's a particular alien character who I feel has been left in limbo at the end of the book. The revelation at the end of the book has all sorts of interesting implications as well.
Good book. Horrible subject.
I would recommend you skip the remainder of this review if you don't want to read the spoiler, because I'm going to proceed as if you're aware of it. Sorry, I don't want to put the whole review under spoilers because you need to read this explanation.
Toussaint is a planet that has been colonized by people of Caribbean descent and it maintains the Caribbean-speech and culture from Earth with lots of believable additions. It's a post-scarcity civilization with ubiquitous AI surveillance and robot labor. No humans need to work although some do. Antonio, the mayor of the local city, and his wife Ione have a fractious relationship built around pointless grabs for attention, drama, cheating and basically being idiots. This eventually leads to serious criminal charges against Antonio when he kills one of Ione's lovers. One of the fates possible for criminals is to be shoved through a dimensional wall into an alternative Toussaint, called Half-Way Tree, and rather than wait for a trial or sentence, Antonio opts to kidnap his daughter Tan-Tan and jump to Toussaint without any equipment or provisions.
Half-Way Tree is a much more primitive world than Toussaint but it has friendly and peaceful locals and a variety of settlements created by the people sent through from the other world. It's a tough life, but Tan-Tan finds happiness there with friends and surprisingly, family.
Until her ninth birthday. Cue events in the spoiler tags above.
The second half of the book is about Tan-Tan, a 16 year old girl, pregnant with an incestuous rape baby and convinced that she is a murderer. She is pursued beyond all reason for her "crime" and she brings disaster on the people that help her, but she has been given a "curse" that guides her through her life from that point.
For every life she takes, she must save two.
And thus the Midnight Robber, Tan-Tan the Robber Queen is born.
Ok, I loved this. It's about a subject I find personally disturbing, but if you're going to read a book about child rape, this is probably the one to read. The emotional impact of it is not glossed over. Tan-Tan hates what her father is doing, but she still loves him. Her thoughts around this and her own reaction to the abuse are brilliantly set out and makes complete sense in terms of abuse survivors. Then her guilt over killing her father is heartbreaking.
The world-building is amazing for both of these worlds, and the aliens and alien ecology are brilliantly set out as well. Sprinkled throughout the story are Caribbean-style Anansi stories that have been merged with the myths springing up around Tan-Tan's own actions as the Robber Queen, a sort of vigilante executor of justice in these rough penal colonies. So one section is the depressing reality of Tan-Tan living rough as an outcast, and then there's a Tan-Tan story which is obviously a tall tale, and then you're back to fine-grained reality only some of the things that happened in the tall tale actually really happened.
And all through in the background you're getting a narrative of social construction, choices and community. It's just wonderful with so many layers to work through and hardly anything to gripe about. Ok, I got called Mr Grumpy Pants for my commentary on Planetfall, so I need to live up to that a bit. The only thing I will gripe about is that I'd like to see a bit more about where it goes from the end of this book. The douen (the aliens) are just sort of left where they were and I'd like to see where their evolving relationship with the humans will go. There's a particular alien character who I feel has been left in limbo at the end of the book. The revelation at the end of the book has all sorts of interesting implications as well.
Good book. Horrible subject.
Read
February 7, 2022“Is love that get the Robber Queen born.”
Spoilers follow and a description of child sexual abuse/rape and pregnancy from sexual assault.
So What’s It About?
It’s Carnival time, and the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance and pageantry. Masked “Midnight Robbers” waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favourite costume to wear at the festival–until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgivable crime.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth–and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen’s legendary powers can save her life…and set her free.
What I Thought
I read Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring last year and thought it was really full of promise but ultimately pretty flawed. Giving Hopkinson another try, I’m pleased to say that I liked Midnight Robber much better. It’s a great story about the power of identity and recovery.
After they are outcast to the prison world, Tan-Tan’s father abuses and rapes her repeatedly and she eventually murders him when she is sixteen. Her reaction to these events, as well as her pregnancy by the rape, is the heart of the story. After his death she has incredibly complex feelings about her father and her murder of him, about having his baby – guilt and fear, loyalty and grief, all well-wrought. In addition, I really appreciate the way that she compartmentalizes her thoughts into those belonging to the Robber Queen, Good Tan-Tan and Bad Tan-Tan. That kind of division of identity into good parts and bad parts that deserve their abuse is definitely something that happens with child abuse, and it’s really telling that in the moment that she murders her father she only says that someone’s body is being hurt and someone stabs Antonio. It’s also such a joy to start to see Bad Tan-Tan’s voice of hate and shame grow quieter over the course of the book as Good Tan-Tan/the Robber Queen become more central to Tan-Tan’s identity.
The Robber Queen identity starts out as a child’s coping mechanism through the unimaginable, but it becomes something so much bigger – a way for Tan-Tan to forge her way out of the horror of her past life, a way for her to right the wrongs of the world she lives in, and a way for her to tell her story. Ultimately, it is the act of telling her true story that helps her heal the most at the end of the story instead of allowing herself to be shrouded in myths as she has been. I think that the book shows that strength can come from both kinds of stories – the ones that let us be our true selves and speak plainly about our suffering and the ones that help protect us from the horrors of the past.
I really loved the folk tales about Tan-Tan that are interspersed throughout Midnight Robber, and how they relate to the truth of her experience. It’s no coincidence that two of them focus on Tan-Tan having to suffer to feed voracious men’s appetites, firstly because one of them her father and secondly because she doesn’t think she deserves any better. And the ultimate framing device of the narration was such a lovely reveal.
Hopkinson’s excellent use of language, called Anglopatwa here and intrinsically Afro-Carribean in nature, is an essential part of the story and such a pleasure to read. I also love that poetry and folktales are so central to the story, as is the idea of story-telling as a reclamation of identity against the forces of trauma and oppression. This is probably one of my favorite examples of Afrotuturism, with its wonderful depiction of an alien world and AI/surveillance technology. The past and the future combine with the huge importance of celebrations like Carnivale and Junkanoo, traditional characters like Midnight Robber brought to new life, the AI being named after Anansi and the incorporation of black heroes and heroines through the use of names like Toussaint and Equiano. Most importantly, perhaps, is that Tan-Tan names her baby Tubman to mean the passage from slavery and darkness into freedom and hope.
My complaints are somewhat minor, finally. I think the passage of time and pacing are a little strange in this book – the narration skips over Antonio and Tan-Tan settling in Junjuh and Tan-Tan becoming friends with the douen Abitefa, both of which I think would have strengthened the story with their inclusion. And just one brief scene that takes place on Tan-Tan’s sixth birthday when her father rapes her for the first time, after which the story skips ahead again. So I think the pacing could have been better, and I also think that Janisette could have been fleshed out more as a character. Her confrontation with Tan-Tan is the final dramatic scene of the story (and somehow, inexplicably, she manages to acquire a tank?!) but I feel like I barely knew anything about who she was and what her relationship with Tan-Tan was like before Tan-Tan killed Antonio.
Spoilers follow and a description of child sexual abuse/rape and pregnancy from sexual assault.
So What’s It About?
It’s Carnival time, and the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance and pageantry. Masked “Midnight Robbers” waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favourite costume to wear at the festival–until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgivable crime.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth–and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen’s legendary powers can save her life…and set her free.
What I Thought
I read Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring last year and thought it was really full of promise but ultimately pretty flawed. Giving Hopkinson another try, I’m pleased to say that I liked Midnight Robber much better. It’s a great story about the power of identity and recovery.
After they are outcast to the prison world, Tan-Tan’s father abuses and rapes her repeatedly and she eventually murders him when she is sixteen. Her reaction to these events, as well as her pregnancy by the rape, is the heart of the story. After his death she has incredibly complex feelings about her father and her murder of him, about having his baby – guilt and fear, loyalty and grief, all well-wrought. In addition, I really appreciate the way that she compartmentalizes her thoughts into those belonging to the Robber Queen, Good Tan-Tan and Bad Tan-Tan. That kind of division of identity into good parts and bad parts that deserve their abuse is definitely something that happens with child abuse, and it’s really telling that in the moment that she murders her father she only says that someone’s body is being hurt and someone stabs Antonio. It’s also such a joy to start to see Bad Tan-Tan’s voice of hate and shame grow quieter over the course of the book as Good Tan-Tan/the Robber Queen become more central to Tan-Tan’s identity.
The Robber Queen identity starts out as a child’s coping mechanism through the unimaginable, but it becomes something so much bigger – a way for Tan-Tan to forge her way out of the horror of her past life, a way for her to right the wrongs of the world she lives in, and a way for her to tell her story. Ultimately, it is the act of telling her true story that helps her heal the most at the end of the story instead of allowing herself to be shrouded in myths as she has been. I think that the book shows that strength can come from both kinds of stories – the ones that let us be our true selves and speak plainly about our suffering and the ones that help protect us from the horrors of the past.
I really loved the folk tales about Tan-Tan that are interspersed throughout Midnight Robber, and how they relate to the truth of her experience. It’s no coincidence that two of them focus on Tan-Tan having to suffer to feed voracious men’s appetites, firstly because one of them her father and secondly because she doesn’t think she deserves any better. And the ultimate framing device of the narration was such a lovely reveal.
Hopkinson’s excellent use of language, called Anglopatwa here and intrinsically Afro-Carribean in nature, is an essential part of the story and such a pleasure to read. I also love that poetry and folktales are so central to the story, as is the idea of story-telling as a reclamation of identity against the forces of trauma and oppression. This is probably one of my favorite examples of Afrotuturism, with its wonderful depiction of an alien world and AI/surveillance technology. The past and the future combine with the huge importance of celebrations like Carnivale and Junkanoo, traditional characters like Midnight Robber brought to new life, the AI being named after Anansi and the incorporation of black heroes and heroines through the use of names like Toussaint and Equiano. Most importantly, perhaps, is that Tan-Tan names her baby Tubman to mean the passage from slavery and darkness into freedom and hope.
My complaints are somewhat minor, finally. I think the passage of time and pacing are a little strange in this book – the narration skips over Antonio and Tan-Tan settling in Junjuh and Tan-Tan becoming friends with the douen Abitefa, both of which I think would have strengthened the story with their inclusion. And just one brief scene that takes place on Tan-Tan’s sixth birthday when her father rapes her for the first time, after which the story skips ahead again. So I think the pacing could have been better, and I also think that Janisette could have been fleshed out more as a character. Her confrontation with Tan-Tan is the final dramatic scene of the story (and somehow, inexplicably, she manages to acquire a tank?!) but I feel like I barely knew anything about who she was and what her relationship with Tan-Tan was like before Tan-Tan killed Antonio.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2020
This is a hard book to read, with some major content warnings (). But Nalo Hopkinson has such a distinctive, powerful voice that brings life to her characters and world, and I was thoroughly drawn in. I loved the occasional insertion of Anansi stories that retold events in Tan-Tan's life in a mythologized way. I'd previously read one of these stories in the excellent collection Skin Folk, but it gained new depth here in context.
July 28, 2020
Aaah ms. Hopkinson <3
This was excellent! Drawing heavily on West African/Carribean folklore (as all good African SFF should), it’s a story of a young girl growing up with an abusive father, which leads her to escape and refuge among another, different but accepting people called the douen. Along the way she learns to fend for herself and her rightful place in the society she had to run from. As usual Hopkinson’s writing is sharp as jagged rocks and unsentimental, despite the heavy topics it deals with. I adored the douen, an alien race based on a Carribean mythological creature, and Robin Miles did a remarkable job with the audiobook, conveying the douen’s speech into a sing-song trill.
This was excellent! Drawing heavily on West African/Carribean folklore (as all good African SFF should), it’s a story of a young girl growing up with an abusive father, which leads her to escape and refuge among another, different but accepting people called the douen. Along the way she learns to fend for herself and her rightful place in the society she had to run from. As usual Hopkinson’s writing is sharp as jagged rocks and unsentimental, despite the heavy topics it deals with. I adored the douen, an alien race based on a Carribean mythological creature, and Robin Miles did a remarkable job with the audiobook, conveying the douen’s speech into a sing-song trill.
September 5, 2018
Nalo Hopkinson has crafted a magical, mesmerizing modern day folktale, pulsing with life, heartbreak, beauty, and an unfettered imagination. Propelled by an utterly original, poetic, thrillingly inventive patois, the story pours forth with an unstoppable, emotionally rich energy. Moving and scary and dreamlike and at times hilarious, Midnight Robber is absolutely unforgettable.
September 12, 2018
I wanted to go to sleep, but I can't, so instead I'll review this brilliant, awful, mesmerizing, repulsive book.
CONTENT WARNING (some mild spoilers I can't avoid.)
Things to admire:
-The writing. The book is written in very anglo Anglopatwa which adds a lot to the flavor.
-The worlds. All of the worlds mentioned are so beautifully imagined, so rich and different but so fleshed out that you could smell the loam of those other places. I could picture all the creatures and the way the sunlight from a different star might reflect. Just stunning. And not only the environment, but the people were so different! This was an afro-futurism that deftly skated through the fear of eugenics. Yes, the population is mostly Black, but makes sure to call out the mingling of dominant traits from other cultures that came to Toussaint with the larger Caribbean population. And, not only that, but homosexual, poly, and kink relationships were all gently and non-judgmentally included. With a few swift lines, Hopkinson welcomed everyone into the world and said there was room for us.
-The mythology. The weaving of the Afro-Caribbean mythology into the story, especially with how narration is done, was absolutely spellbinding. Sort of like a Zelazny-esque myth retelling but so very unique to this author's voice. It was extremely well done, some of the best "truth behind the tale" writing I've read.
-The fearlessness of the author. The concept, the subject matter, the main character. I can't imagine the work she put into this and she did it brave as the Robber Queen herself!
-The good characters. Tan-Tan's honest response to trauma. Aislin's huge heart, and her daughter just like her. Charlie's sweetness. Chichibud and Benta and Tefa. They were wonderful characters, not just for their kindness, which was appreciated in the horrors of this book, but also for their flaws. They were imperfect but trying and you loved them for trying.
Things that made me want to crawl in a hole and never come out:
-The trauma. It's just constant. Through the very end, this is a book about living after your life's been taken but your death hasn't found you. I was ill-prepared for it all, despite the content warnings I received (which thank you! This would have been so very upsetting without those warnings!)
-The pacing. We linger a lot on certain parts of the story. Normally pacing isn't the sort of thing that makes me want to hibernate, but when the lingering is on extremely upsetting things, I maybe start to look for caves.
-The ending. I can't even say it wasn't perfect. I didn't see the twist coming. It was all wrapped up "too nice." Except that it was actually a horror show that sort of shunted aside the awfulness that was really happening and gave us something like hope? I guess? For the future...even if that future isn't really what's in store for our protagonist. Yeah. No, it was perfect for this narrative...but I'm still crawling in a hole now and no one can come unless they have cookies and don't move too fast.
It's certainly one of the most inventive books I've ever read. And the trauma was some of the most authentic...I never felt like the author was doing anything with my emotions in mind. She told the story she wanted to tell, and it's an important story. But that doesn't make it one I like reading. I will certainly look for more by Hopkinson. But first, a long, long long break. 4 stars because of the stellar execution. If we're going off of actual enjoyment, probably 1.5 stars. As the people of Toussaint say, "I hurt too bad."
CONTENT WARNING (some mild spoilers I can't avoid.)
Things to admire:
-The writing. The book is written in very anglo Anglopatwa which adds a lot to the flavor.
-The worlds. All of the worlds mentioned are so beautifully imagined, so rich and different but so fleshed out that you could smell the loam of those other places. I could picture all the creatures and the way the sunlight from a different star might reflect. Just stunning. And not only the environment, but the people were so different! This was an afro-futurism that deftly skated through the fear of eugenics. Yes, the population is mostly Black, but makes sure to call out the mingling of dominant traits from other cultures that came to Toussaint with the larger Caribbean population. And, not only that, but homosexual, poly, and kink relationships were all gently and non-judgmentally included. With a few swift lines, Hopkinson welcomed everyone into the world and said there was room for us.
-The mythology. The weaving of the Afro-Caribbean mythology into the story, especially with how narration is done, was absolutely spellbinding. Sort of like a Zelazny-esque myth retelling but so very unique to this author's voice. It was extremely well done, some of the best "truth behind the tale" writing I've read.
-The fearlessness of the author. The concept, the subject matter, the main character. I can't imagine the work she put into this and she did it brave as the Robber Queen herself!
-The good characters. Tan-Tan's honest response to trauma. Aislin's huge heart, and her daughter just like her. Charlie's sweetness. Chichibud and Benta and Tefa. They were wonderful characters, not just for their kindness, which was appreciated in the horrors of this book, but also for their flaws. They were imperfect but trying and you loved them for trying.
Things that made me want to crawl in a hole and never come out:
-The trauma. It's just constant. Through the very end, this is a book about living after your life's been taken but your death hasn't found you. I was ill-prepared for it all, despite the content warnings I received (which thank you! This would have been so very upsetting without those warnings!)
-The pacing. We linger a lot on certain parts of the story. Normally pacing isn't the sort of thing that makes me want to hibernate, but when the lingering is on extremely upsetting things, I maybe start to look for caves.
-The ending. I can't even say it wasn't perfect. I didn't see the twist coming. It was all wrapped up "too nice." Except that it was actually a horror show that sort of shunted aside the awfulness that was really happening and gave us something like hope? I guess? For the future...even if that future isn't really what's in store for our protagonist. Yeah. No, it was perfect for this narrative...but I'm still crawling in a hole now and no one can come unless they have cookies and don't move too fast.
It's certainly one of the most inventive books I've ever read. And the trauma was some of the most authentic...I never felt like the author was doing anything with my emotions in mind. She told the story she wanted to tell, and it's an important story. But that doesn't make it one I like reading. I will certainly look for more by Hopkinson. But first, a long, long long break. 4 stars because of the stellar execution. If we're going off of actual enjoyment, probably 1.5 stars. As the people of Toussaint say, "I hurt too bad."
August 31, 2013
I keep hearing great things about Nalo Hopkinson, and I keep being... underwhelmed.
I'm upping this to three stars because I felt it was a lot better than 'Brown Girl in the Ring,' which I gave two. But I still didn't love it. However, the language (and use of dialect) here felt much smoother; there was a more polished, professional feel to this book.
A young girl Tan-Tan, lives on a planet colonized by Caribbean immigrants. People live in luxury, with technology to take care of all manual labor. The peace is enforced by an internet-in-your-head kind of device, which sees all...
However, there are those who want to rebel against the system. Tan-Tan's father, the mayor, is bought off by a representative of those rebels... and, umm, that's a red herring plot that goes nowhere and is just dropped.
Instead, we switch focus to how the father, Antonio, is a jealous womanizer who ends up murdering his wife's lover, and is sentenced to be exiled to a parallel world. Although he had abandoned his daughter, and clearly does not really care about her (well, neither does her mother), he ends up kidnapping her into exile with him, and, in a new alien land of poverty, where criminal exiles act like the worst sort of colonizers over the native aliens, becomes her rapist and abuser.
The story is mainly about how Tan-Tan finally escapes that abuse and finds her own identity. (And lives for a while with the aliens, who are portrayed in a unique and interesting way - but all the details about their culture feel weirdly extraneous to the story.)
Things about the story bothered me, and it took a while for me to put my finger on it. After some thought, I think part of it is that for some reason, even in this very different society, all the people Hopkinson portrays behave like the products of poverty, oppression and abuse: rape, child abuse, broken homes, sexism, political corruption, etc - all are rampant, even on the 'civilized' planet. (We don't see one single person who I could imagine inventing or even maintaining the technology that's described.) And on the exile planet, all of that becomes more extreme: with slovenliness, slavery, colonial oppression/racism thrown in. Since Hopkinson makes a point of having every single human character be black, at some point I had to say, "What? You don't think that in any future, black people could form a society any better than the worst negative stereotypes about the 'ghetto'?"
I'm getting the impression that Hopkinson is writing toward an audience of young people who have suffered abuse, who have experienced all the social ills she mentions (this is bolstered by a short story of hers I read the other day), but, although I can't say I've lived a life free of trouble, something about it just isn't working for me. Clearly it is for other people, as she receives abundant praise and wins awards...
I'm upping this to three stars because I felt it was a lot better than 'Brown Girl in the Ring,' which I gave two. But I still didn't love it. However, the language (and use of dialect) here felt much smoother; there was a more polished, professional feel to this book.
A young girl Tan-Tan, lives on a planet colonized by Caribbean immigrants. People live in luxury, with technology to take care of all manual labor. The peace is enforced by an internet-in-your-head kind of device, which sees all...
However, there are those who want to rebel against the system. Tan-Tan's father, the mayor, is bought off by a representative of those rebels... and, umm, that's a red herring plot that goes nowhere and is just dropped.
Instead, we switch focus to how the father, Antonio, is a jealous womanizer who ends up murdering his wife's lover, and is sentenced to be exiled to a parallel world. Although he had abandoned his daughter, and clearly does not really care about her (well, neither does her mother), he ends up kidnapping her into exile with him, and, in a new alien land of poverty, where criminal exiles act like the worst sort of colonizers over the native aliens, becomes her rapist and abuser.
The story is mainly about how Tan-Tan finally escapes that abuse and finds her own identity. (And lives for a while with the aliens, who are portrayed in a unique and interesting way - but all the details about their culture feel weirdly extraneous to the story.)
Things about the story bothered me, and it took a while for me to put my finger on it. After some thought, I think part of it is that for some reason, even in this very different society, all the people Hopkinson portrays behave like the products of poverty, oppression and abuse: rape, child abuse, broken homes, sexism, political corruption, etc - all are rampant, even on the 'civilized' planet. (We don't see one single person who I could imagine inventing or even maintaining the technology that's described.) And on the exile planet, all of that becomes more extreme: with slovenliness, slavery, colonial oppression/racism thrown in. Since Hopkinson makes a point of having every single human character be black, at some point I had to say, "What? You don't think that in any future, black people could form a society any better than the worst negative stereotypes about the 'ghetto'?"
I'm getting the impression that Hopkinson is writing toward an audience of young people who have suffered abuse, who have experienced all the social ills she mentions (this is bolstered by a short story of hers I read the other day), but, although I can't say I've lived a life free of trouble, something about it just isn't working for me. Clearly it is for other people, as she receives abundant praise and wins awards...
July 6, 2022
Love it!
I love this book, Tan Tan is such a strong characters and the worlds that Hopkinson creates for Tan Tan to grow in are just so beautiful and mysterious and dangerous. I’m a sucker for this book, and the audio and fantastic! I can’t wait to read this again!
I love this book, Tan Tan is such a strong characters and the worlds that Hopkinson creates for Tan Tan to grow in are just so beautiful and mysterious and dangerous. I’m a sucker for this book, and the audio and fantastic! I can’t wait to read this again!
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
January 28, 2023
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one.
On the one hand: the world-building is stunning. Between Toussaint and New Half-Way Tree, the humans and the douen there are two distinct worlds, and two distinct peoples complete with their own sets of hierarchies, cultures and superstitions. I loved how Hopkinson explored how humanity and its "bad people" set up villages, and the small ways shown of how humans cohabit (or not) with each other. It's a Caribbean-based society of spacefarers, and I loved it.
There's Granny Nanny, the supercomputer who polices everything, and everyone has their own nanomites connecting them to her web (anansi!!) at birth, and each household has their own AI in the form of their household eshu, and oh my god Tan-Tan's eshu is the best. There's also an interesting framing device going on throughout the story, which I feel is best explored on your own.
AND this is a queer-normative society, with loving depictions of LGBTQ+ folks and polyamory.
Also, the writing is absolutely beautiful. It's written in Creole, and Hopkinson has an absolutely gorgeous way of spinning her imagery, transforming the most benign things (like a baby opening its hands) into something gorgeous.
And yet. The book revolves almost entirely around pedophilia and incest. It is graphic and prevalent and shocking, and I pushed through because I wanted to see how it ended, and it's basically the story of Tan-Tan, a girl whose father was a mayor on the planet of Toussaint who murders his wife's lover and escapes to the prison planet of New Half-Way Tree while taking his seven-year old daughter with him. His seven-year old daughter...who looks a lot like his beloved wife. You know where this is going, and it spares few details.
The funny part was that I had originally bought a secondhand copy, not realizing that it was HEAVILY annotated by the previous person, who read it for class (how do I know this? there were due dates written in the book). Dear reader was someone who had both never read a science fiction book before, much less an afrofuturist book, because there were some really ignorantly things (like "regression of language?" for the Creole, which is A WHOLE ASS LANGUAGE). Ma'am you were reading this for class, did your teacher not TELL YOU that Nalo Hopkinson is Jamaican?? Were you asleep in your history of the English language class?
Let's just say that their analysis was way off and I had to get a clean copy from my library because they were too distracting (thankfully my library had one available), which leaves me to my one plea: Annotation Girlies, please please please toss your used copies when you no longer need them. Throw those books in the trash. It's okay. You're saving yourself and future readers.
Also, I think I'm a little salty that my English department in college didn't offer anything SO COOL as science fiction courses, because I would have eaten that shit up. It was either 19th century Literatuuuuure or Shakespeare, so I went with the more fun option (Shakespeare all the way, baby—let's stuff people into pies).
Anywho, this is a solid 4-star read for me, and quite frankly, THIS BOOK should have won the 2001 Hugo over fucking Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
WTF were those voters thinking?
No. Wait. Don't tell me. It's the Hugos. I know exactly what they were thinking.
On the one hand: the world-building is stunning. Between Toussaint and New Half-Way Tree, the humans and the douen there are two distinct worlds, and two distinct peoples complete with their own sets of hierarchies, cultures and superstitions. I loved how Hopkinson explored how humanity and its "bad people" set up villages, and the small ways shown of how humans cohabit (or not) with each other. It's a Caribbean-based society of spacefarers, and I loved it.
There's Granny Nanny, the supercomputer who polices everything, and everyone has their own nanomites connecting them to her web (anansi!!) at birth, and each household has their own AI in the form of their household eshu, and oh my god Tan-Tan's eshu is the best. There's also an interesting framing device going on throughout the story, which I feel is best explored on your own.
AND this is a queer-normative society, with loving depictions of LGBTQ+ folks and polyamory.
Also, the writing is absolutely beautiful. It's written in Creole, and Hopkinson has an absolutely gorgeous way of spinning her imagery, transforming the most benign things (like a baby opening its hands) into something gorgeous.
And yet. The book revolves almost entirely around pedophilia and incest. It is graphic and prevalent and shocking, and I pushed through because I wanted to see how it ended, and it's basically the story of Tan-Tan, a girl whose father was a mayor on the planet of Toussaint who murders his wife's lover and escapes to the prison planet of New Half-Way Tree while taking his seven-year old daughter with him. His seven-year old daughter...who looks a lot like his beloved wife. You know where this is going, and it spares few details.
The funny part was that I had originally bought a secondhand copy, not realizing that it was HEAVILY annotated by the previous person, who read it for class (how do I know this? there were due dates written in the book). Dear reader was someone who had both never read a science fiction book before, much less an afrofuturist book, because there were some really ignorantly things (like "regression of language?" for the Creole, which is A WHOLE ASS LANGUAGE). Ma'am you were reading this for class, did your teacher not TELL YOU that Nalo Hopkinson is Jamaican?? Were you asleep in your history of the English language class?
Let's just say that their analysis was way off and I had to get a clean copy from my library because they were too distracting (thankfully my library had one available), which leaves me to my one plea: Annotation Girlies, please please please toss your used copies when you no longer need them. Throw those books in the trash. It's okay. You're saving yourself and future readers.
Also, I think I'm a little salty that my English department in college didn't offer anything SO COOL as science fiction courses, because I would have eaten that shit up. It was either 19th century Literatuuuuure or Shakespeare, so I went with the more fun option (Shakespeare all the way, baby—let's stuff people into pies).
Anywho, this is a solid 4-star read for me, and quite frankly, THIS BOOK should have won the 2001 Hugo over fucking Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
WTF were those voters thinking?
No. Wait. Don't tell me. It's the Hugos. I know exactly what they were thinking.
September 7, 2016
A magical story-telling style, musically told, with a plot that weaves its way through some horrific landscapes in the most uplifting way. A science fiction rumination on the power of myths, on the nature of humanity, but oh such a damn fine story!
December 11, 2020
Interesting far future, cyberpunk elements with some very confronting themes in this coming of age novel. The planet Toussaint is colonised by Carib people and the story is told in dialect that flows musically once you get used it.
March 6, 2024
This was such a difficult read. Not only because I had issues getting through the patois (my non-native English brain could not), but because this story is harrowing. It heavily focuses on trauma and while it does lead to a slow triumph.
Midnight Robber is Tan-Tan’s story. Tan-Tan lives a privileged life on Toussaint until she ends up being an exile along her problematic father. The exile leads them to a portal to an alternative place, leaving technology behind them. Eventually, Tan-Tan becomes the Robber Queen to survive this new place and most importantly, her own father.
This was honestly such a struggle to get through for me, Hopkinson introduces us to a very well-developed and crafted world, that is very rich - both the techy places and the after-portal ones. I don’t know if it’s her writing or that I was struggling understanding sentences, but I found I needed way more chewing into the worldbuilding. I read this with my bookclub and if it wasn’t for someone taking the time to define some concepts for me, I would still think Granny Nanny was some sort of robot that acted as a nanny for kids and sang songs. But I’ll take the blame for not getting things, this is a struggle I usually face with fantasy/sci-fi when concepts are dropped and I’m expected to understand it on my own (I am dumb, hello).
Anyways, patois and worldbuilding aside, this was so tough. I didn’t expect the turn the book would take and when it happened, I don’t know, it’s gut-wrenching. Hopkinson excelled at something many authors don’t, which is saying what happens without showing us, and yet still managing to fuck us up. She’s also amazing at writing emotionally complex characters and I think that helped in just how you cannot but empathize with Tan-Tan and root for her as she heals from trauma by becoming the Robber Queen.
Content warnings:.
Midnight Robber is Tan-Tan’s story. Tan-Tan lives a privileged life on Toussaint until she ends up being an exile along her problematic father. The exile leads them to a portal to an alternative place, leaving technology behind them. Eventually, Tan-Tan becomes the Robber Queen to survive this new place and most importantly, her own father.
This was honestly such a struggle to get through for me, Hopkinson introduces us to a very well-developed and crafted world, that is very rich - both the techy places and the after-portal ones. I don’t know if it’s her writing or that I was struggling understanding sentences, but I found I needed way more chewing into the worldbuilding. I read this with my bookclub and if it wasn’t for someone taking the time to define some concepts for me, I would still think Granny Nanny was some sort of robot that acted as a nanny for kids and sang songs. But I’ll take the blame for not getting things, this is a struggle I usually face with fantasy/sci-fi when concepts are dropped and I’m expected to understand it on my own (I am dumb, hello).
Anyways, patois and worldbuilding aside, this was so tough. I didn’t expect the turn the book would take and when it happened, I don’t know, it’s gut-wrenching. Hopkinson excelled at something many authors don’t, which is saying what happens without showing us, and yet still managing to fuck us up. She’s also amazing at writing emotionally complex characters and I think that helped in just how you cannot but empathize with Tan-Tan and root for her as she heals from trauma by becoming the Robber Queen.
Content warnings:.
March 13, 2011
I like science fiction. I like Caribbean cultures. But I've never looked for the intersection of the two. Actually, now I think about it, I have encountered lots of science fictional themes in reggae lyrics. But certainly I never thought to look for a science fiction novel written from a Caribbean perspective.
So that was the first thing I liked about Midnight Robber. It begins on the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint during Carnival. We read this for my book club here in New Orleans just as our own Carnival season was coming to a climax — so I was immediately hooked by the setting and the voice.
The entire novel is written in what I guess might be described as creolized English. It was certainly easy for me to understand once I got the hang of it, so I'm guessing it's a blend of English and perhaps several true creole languages. (As an aside, I love it when two books I'm reading at the same time illuminate each another in unexpected ways, and that happened here when I got to Jared Diamond's section on pidgins and creoles in The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal.) In any event, the "patwa" definitely gave the book a unique flavor that I enjoyed hugely. In my mind I kept hearing the voice of my favorite Dominican poet, Billy Jno Hope.
But as I read on I discovered a lot more than that initial hook to keep me interested and involved. The father-daughter relationship which is a key element of this story resonated with me, but I did not anticipate the direction it would ultimately take. To say more would be to risk spoiling, so I'll shut up. The daughter emerges as the protagonist in the story. It's a coming-of-age tale. I've read plenty of those from the male perspective, so it's refreshing to get one from the female side.
Indeed, the perspective of this book is profoundly and vitally female. I would not hesitate to call it feminist, except that label might scare away people who have certain preconceived notions about the f-word. Forget all that. This is first and foremost a book about being human. But it's hard to imagine it being written by anyone other than a woman of color. I suppose comparisons to Octavia Butler are inevitable, not just because of the identity of the author but also because of the themes addressed. I was also reminded of Marge Piercy's far more strident Woman on the Edge of Time.
I found the whole story deeply involving and stimulating to my imagination. Did I fail to mention this is unapologetic science fiction as well? In addition high technology we also have alien creatures. Blending these elements with Afro-Caribbean folklore is a powerful combination that really worked for me.
I'd knock off half a star for the ending which felt a trifle rushed and a little too "easy" for me. But endings are hard and I can't begrudge the last few pages when the rest of the book is so accomplished.
So that was the first thing I liked about Midnight Robber. It begins on the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint during Carnival. We read this for my book club here in New Orleans just as our own Carnival season was coming to a climax — so I was immediately hooked by the setting and the voice.
The entire novel is written in what I guess might be described as creolized English. It was certainly easy for me to understand once I got the hang of it, so I'm guessing it's a blend of English and perhaps several true creole languages. (As an aside, I love it when two books I'm reading at the same time illuminate each another in unexpected ways, and that happened here when I got to Jared Diamond's section on pidgins and creoles in The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal.) In any event, the "patwa" definitely gave the book a unique flavor that I enjoyed hugely. In my mind I kept hearing the voice of my favorite Dominican poet, Billy Jno Hope.
But as I read on I discovered a lot more than that initial hook to keep me interested and involved. The father-daughter relationship which is a key element of this story resonated with me, but I did not anticipate the direction it would ultimately take. To say more would be to risk spoiling, so I'll shut up. The daughter emerges as the protagonist in the story. It's a coming-of-age tale. I've read plenty of those from the male perspective, so it's refreshing to get one from the female side.
Indeed, the perspective of this book is profoundly and vitally female. I would not hesitate to call it feminist, except that label might scare away people who have certain preconceived notions about the f-word. Forget all that. This is first and foremost a book about being human. But it's hard to imagine it being written by anyone other than a woman of color. I suppose comparisons to Octavia Butler are inevitable, not just because of the identity of the author but also because of the themes addressed. I was also reminded of Marge Piercy's far more strident Woman on the Edge of Time.
I found the whole story deeply involving and stimulating to my imagination. Did I fail to mention this is unapologetic science fiction as well? In addition high technology we also have alien creatures. Blending these elements with Afro-Caribbean folklore is a powerful combination that really worked for me.
I'd knock off half a star for the ending which felt a trifle rushed and a little too "easy" for me. But endings are hard and I can't begrudge the last few pages when the rest of the book is so accomplished.
sampled-not-finished
March 29, 2017I'm not sure it's fair to mark this as 'abandoned' when I only read a few pages in the first place. Normally I wouldn't even consider that 'begun.' But I thought I should at least mention why I quit so early.
It's all because of the dialect in combination with the world-building. It usually takes some concentration to comprehend a new world, but when that world is introduced in a dialect that you can barely understand... it's rough. The first few pages were such hard work for me to decipher and I just don't feel like toiling over a book so much.
It's all because of the dialect in combination with the world-building. It usually takes some concentration to comprehend a new world, but when that world is introduced in a dialect that you can barely understand... it's rough. The first few pages were such hard work for me to decipher and I just don't feel like toiling over a book so much.
March 2, 2024
"No need to wish for dead, it will happen soon enough. It does come to all of we." - Abitefa.
Nalo Hopkinson is quickly becoming one of my top authors. The way in which she infuses her books with portions of her/our culture shows how dedicated she is to bringing the richness of our practices and celebrations of the Caribbean to her readers.
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
Midnight Robber is no exception; filled with influences from Jamaica to Trinidad to Carriacou as a whole was just exceptional. I was swept up and carried away and had no regrets.
Nalo has such an attuned way of writing her heritage: the dialect, the people, the places, the music, the festivals, and the experiences.
It is impossible not to just immerse oneself in the tale she tells, especially when one can relate to what is on the page. The atmosphere that Hopkinson weaves is lush; bursting with Caribbean flavour and folktales even as we travel to planets via 'interdimensional gateways'.
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
The impact of the cultures from the countries where Nalo has lived is vibrantly woven throughout this story, and I could not help but fall into every page. There are experiences that are familiar, both good and bad (friendships, parent/child relationships, family dynamics, and displacement). Not only is there passion in this story, but there is betrayal, misdeeds, bravery, self-acceptance, and triumph.
The polyamory representation was noted and appreciated and content warning: there is child sexual abuse depicted in this story, as well as the damaging effect on our MCs psyche.
Read This Book!!
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
Nalo Hopkinson is quickly becoming one of my top authors. The way in which she infuses her books with portions of her/our culture shows how dedicated she is to bringing the richness of our practices and celebrations of the Caribbean to her readers.
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
Midnight Robber is no exception; filled with influences from Jamaica to Trinidad to Carriacou as a whole was just exceptional. I was swept up and carried away and had no regrets.
Nalo has such an attuned way of writing her heritage: the dialect, the people, the places, the music, the festivals, and the experiences.
It is impossible not to just immerse oneself in the tale she tells, especially when one can relate to what is on the page. The atmosphere that Hopkinson weaves is lush; bursting with Caribbean flavour and folktales even as we travel to planets via 'interdimensional gateways'.
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
The impact of the cultures from the countries where Nalo has lived is vibrantly woven throughout this story, and I could not help but fall into every page. There are experiences that are familiar, both good and bad (friendships, parent/child relationships, family dynamics, and displacement). Not only is there passion in this story, but there is betrayal, misdeeds, bravery, self-acceptance, and triumph.
The polyamory representation was noted and appreciated and content warning: there is child sexual abuse depicted in this story, as well as the damaging effect on our MCs psyche.
Read This Book!!
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
May 8, 2020
Mini-Review: Mix of Book & Audio
4.5 Stars for Narration by Robin Miles
3 Stars for Tan-Tan
4 Stars for All of the Tales Woven Together
Midnight Robber is tale of tragedy and hard won triumphant. It is a strange tale of survival in a penal colony and the disturbing paths love can take. I loved the sing-song, flow of the words and the way Miles made it all come to vibrant life.
A part of me wants to rate the book higher because it's so well done, but I had too many questions rise while I followed the journey. The story is complete and yet unfinished. It's one of those that leaves you yearning to know more.
The beginning of the tale made me think of a futuristic New Orleans/Caribbean. Then the setting changed to a wilder land and I thought of parts of Africa & Australia. I loved the deep dive into the douen culture and ways. Wonderfully alien and yet understandable.
Despite being the main character, you don't get to really know Tan-Tan. We are external observers that get small peeks into her mind, emotions and actions but you don't get to truly see Tan-Tan because she was more a fable, an eternal child and whoever she may become was only glimpsed during her trials. That answer lies beyond the pages of this book and that I kind of hate that. See? Leaves you wanting more. =)
4.5 Stars for Narration by Robin Miles
3 Stars for Tan-Tan
4 Stars for All of the Tales Woven Together
Midnight Robber is tale of tragedy and hard won triumphant. It is a strange tale of survival in a penal colony and the disturbing paths love can take. I loved the sing-song, flow of the words and the way Miles made it all come to vibrant life.
A part of me wants to rate the book higher because it's so well done, but I had too many questions rise while I followed the journey. The story is complete and yet unfinished. It's one of those that leaves you yearning to know more.
The beginning of the tale made me think of a futuristic New Orleans/Caribbean. Then the setting changed to a wilder land and I thought of parts of Africa & Australia. I loved the deep dive into the douen culture and ways. Wonderfully alien and yet understandable.
Despite being the main character, you don't get to really know Tan-Tan. We are external observers that get small peeks into her mind, emotions and actions but you don't get to truly see Tan-Tan because she was more a fable, an eternal child and whoever she may become was only glimpsed during her trials. That answer lies beyond the pages of this book and that I kind of hate that. See? Leaves you wanting more. =)
May 20, 2017
Wow. I needed this.
January 16, 2024
Listened on Audible and enjoyed it. The writing was great and kept me engaged in the storytelling.
February 26, 2024
File this one under "Caribbean Futurism". The use of language and culture in this book is absolutely brilliant, from the way it informs how future technologies are used and thought of, to how past myths inform and evolve into later myths. The world building and complex characters are also top-notch.
This is a really fun world to explore, but it's also a rough one. Warnings for .
This is a really fun world to explore, but it's also a rough one. Warnings for .
March 17, 2024
Midnight Robber was Hugo nominated, and rightly so. It's an incredible story of a young girl's coming of age on the planet Toussaint, peopled by Afro-Caribbean migrants from a distant Earth many years ago. The mix of folktales, science, and language made this a fascinating read for me, and I loved the way Hopkinson weaved these all together. There are some dark parts to this book, including , that some readers might want to steer away from.
Chichibud and his family in the Daddy Tree were probably some of my favorite scenes, as was the folkstory of Tan-Tan and JohnCrow.
Hopkinson is a talented author, and I enjoyed this tremendously.
Chichibud and his family in the Daddy Tree were probably some of my favorite scenes, as was the folkstory of Tan-Tan and JohnCrow.
Hopkinson is a talented author, and I enjoyed this tremendously.
January 19, 2010
An excellent example of science fiction not centered on (or featuring any examples of) a Europe-descended culture, but rather on a planet colonized by people of the Caribbean. The whole thing is written in patwah, too, which does a great job of immersing the reader in Hopkinson's world.
Planets plural, rather, because the central conceit of this novel is some sort of mumbo-jumbo about criminals from the technologically advanced world of Toussaint being banished to its alternate dimension analogue New Half-Way Tree, which is populated by creatures out of Caribbean myth. Our heroine, Tan-Tan, is used to a life of luxury on the former, but then is kidnapped to the latter by her convict father, where, after a lifetime of abuse (her survival mechanisms here are one of the novel's best parts), she takes on aspects of the legendary Robber Queen, cohabitating with the creatures of folklore and creating a myth of her own that spreads throughout her new home planet.
Folklore and storytelling lie at the heart of this novel. The above narrative is interspersed with scenes of someone relating some of Tan-Tan's exploits in an exaggerated and mythical form, Tan-Tan's survival is predicated on her adopting aspects of this folk hero, and the climactic show-down (such as it is) basically boils down to her persuading a crowd (and the antagonist) to listen to her story - which she has heroically claimed as her own. I confess to a little bit of disappointment here at what turns out to be the rather short timeframe of the novel. Stories, after all, require a great deal of time to turn into myths, and when we eventually learn that Tan-Tan's heroic exploits have all taken place in about 7 months, the whole thing starts to feel kind of unnaturally compressed.
The ending revelation of the identity of the storyteller of the Tan-Tan myths, furthermore, struck me as not only nonsensical but kind of damaging to the entire message of the book.
Planets plural, rather, because the central conceit of this novel is some sort of mumbo-jumbo about criminals from the technologically advanced world of Toussaint being banished to its alternate dimension analogue New Half-Way Tree, which is populated by creatures out of Caribbean myth. Our heroine, Tan-Tan, is used to a life of luxury on the former, but then is kidnapped to the latter by her convict father, where, after a lifetime of abuse (her survival mechanisms here are one of the novel's best parts), she takes on aspects of the legendary Robber Queen, cohabitating with the creatures of folklore and creating a myth of her own that spreads throughout her new home planet.
Folklore and storytelling lie at the heart of this novel. The above narrative is interspersed with scenes of someone relating some of Tan-Tan's exploits in an exaggerated and mythical form, Tan-Tan's survival is predicated on her adopting aspects of this folk hero, and the climactic show-down (such as it is) basically boils down to her persuading a crowd (and the antagonist) to listen to her story - which she has heroically claimed as her own. I confess to a little bit of disappointment here at what turns out to be the rather short timeframe of the novel. Stories, after all, require a great deal of time to turn into myths, and when we eventually learn that Tan-Tan's heroic exploits have all taken place in about 7 months, the whole thing starts to feel kind of unnaturally compressed.
The ending revelation of the identity of the storyteller of the Tan-Tan myths, furthermore, struck me as not only nonsensical but kind of damaging to the entire message of the book.
July 7, 2016
Probably one of the most important books I'll ever read. I love science fiction as a genre because it's a way to escape, and this story did that for me while making me feel closer to home, more than ever. I think I also just read this at the very right time that I needed to. Another time all the beat down Tan-Tan get beat down might have sour me too much to enjoy it properly, but by the end of the book, I couldn't vex. I just felt strong, and good. It feels good to have so many familiar things captured in a vivid, beautiful, painful story like this.
Hopkinson does such a good job of melding Trini/Jamaican (and possibly others that I didn't recognise) culture with fantasy and science fiction, it took two twos for it to just hook me in. Douens as a whole different race! Granny Nanny, mother of all! Papa Bois, part of the flora! And jeez, the Midnight Robber. Such a traditionally masculine figure, but she feminised the role so well through Tan-Tan, and it was just as fierce and strong and cutting. Her last robber speech had me near tears in the best/worst way.
I don't know, there are a few things that I might have wished to be done differently but it's not often that I get to read a book that takes me back to my childhood and catapults me into the future like this. The book left me hungry for more; it's amazing as is, but I would still read a hundred more verses of Tan-Tan as the Robber Queen.
Sans humanité.
Hopkinson does such a good job of melding Trini/Jamaican (and possibly others that I didn't recognise) culture with fantasy and science fiction, it took two twos for it to just hook me in. Douens as a whole different race! Granny Nanny, mother of all! Papa Bois, part of the flora! And jeez, the Midnight Robber. Such a traditionally masculine figure, but she feminised the role so well through Tan-Tan, and it was just as fierce and strong and cutting. Her last robber speech had me near tears in the best/worst way.
I don't know, there are a few things that I might have wished to be done differently but it's not often that I get to read a book that takes me back to my childhood and catapults me into the future like this. The book left me hungry for more; it's amazing as is, but I would still read a hundred more verses of Tan-Tan as the Robber Queen.
Sans humanité.
February 4, 2017
Which is a long way to go to come to Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber. It's the second of her books I've read, and feels like a later book, in that while I enjoyed Brown Girl in the Ring, this feels stronger, more defined. It keeps what I liked and develops her style further. And specifically, it gives me a very rare SF glimpse into the worlds that could be imagined when you don't have a white person in sight - and why wouldn't I want to see what Hopkinson would do with that? I like being a little out of my comfort zone when I read. If all I want is comfort, well, I have comfort rereads for that.
Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
March 23, 2017
Midnight Robber is a Caribbean, carnival, multi-dimensional travel, space science fiction novel that deals with abuse, rape, marginalization, colonization, and othering. Seem like a lot? It really is.
A young Tan-Tan pretends she's the Robber Queen--a carnival rogue--on a planet colonized by Caribbean immigrants. But when her father the mayor gets in trouble with the law, both of them are forced into exile on a multidimensional ship that takes them to place very different than the one Tan-Tan knows.
So, I love the dialect and Caribbean flavor, and I thoroughly enjoyed the last third or fourth of the novel. But it takes forever for the plot to get going. The first half could've been half as long and I would've been fine. I did really like the end, though.
This is my first Nalo Hopkinson, and despite the 3 stars, I will try more by her. I haven't read anything like it before, and that reason alone is enough to make me try out another by Hopkinson.
A young Tan-Tan pretends she's the Robber Queen--a carnival rogue--on a planet colonized by Caribbean immigrants. But when her father the mayor gets in trouble with the law, both of them are forced into exile on a multidimensional ship that takes them to place very different than the one Tan-Tan knows.
So, I love the dialect and Caribbean flavor, and I thoroughly enjoyed the last third or fourth of the novel. But it takes forever for the plot to get going. The first half could've been half as long and I would've been fine. I did really like the end, though.
This is my first Nalo Hopkinson, and despite the 3 stars, I will try more by her. I haven't read anything like it before, and that reason alone is enough to make me try out another by Hopkinson.
March 4, 2017
It would take a favourite writer like Nalo Hopkinson to get me to read and actually enjoy science fiction. There is a first time for everything! It helps when the planet resembles Jamaica and everyone there speaks in creole!
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