By Ugwunna Obike
Darksand, Jewel Fitila, El Fitila International Ltd. Lagos, pp. 410, 2021
Several seismic vibrations shook the land all over the world. Cities began to fall like sandcastles as massive structures caved into the earth and the Statue of Liberty fell on its face.
This is a context from the book Darksand the first sci-fi fiction novel written by African Jewel Fitila depicting the possibility of humans making sea-city its habitat. It is a fitting reminder to what may likely happen to Eko Atlantic where the government has sandfilled and built up the Bar Beach. Perhaps another Darksand waiting to be recreated.
However, this book by Fitila denotes near collapse of the ecosystem occasioned by its abject neglect, which the sustainable development goals 13 established by the United Nations in 2015 as a result called for urgent action in combating the climate change and its impact or else the world would wake up one day to hear some creatures telling humans: “You are a failure,” as we find Sara confronting Adam in Darksand.
It reveals the ancient connection between humans and the concealed world of plants, as well as climate change and what can possibly happen if we keep destroying the ecosystem. It records that, since the industrial age, humans have contaminated the atmosphere, land, and sea. This brings to mind the issue of open defecation, discharge of effluent into the environment and the consequences of flooding whenever there’s a heavy downpour leading to humans facing imminent extinctions not from the outer space, nuclear warheads but the calmest and most complex organisms like plants which no one thought could cause a problem.
“It began in 2030 when numerous conflicts had taken over the earth. Nations gnawed each other like packs of rabies-infected dogs. And with each defeat fuelled by pride and quest for glory, nuclear-powered bombs were used, and radiation began to spread, killing billions of people and reshaping continents, and the way of life those who managed to survive the altercation,” the author narrated.
Africa was not spared in the imbroglio as the continent was almost wiped out of the map. Labelled “the radiation zone,” the continent was where life ceases to exist, hence it derives from the title of the book Darksand. “Unknown to the world, however, there were some survivors, people who confined themselves to a small town in the forest.”
The storyline centres on humanity that doesn’t know what plants were capable of doing until it was too late. The ecosystem was fast depreciating and this triggered something in the plants which had happened several times but was unknown to humans. Their only chance of survival was to wipe out humanity. But how difficult could that be, knowing that humans depend entirely on plants to survive.
leading the art in this book which is set on a Phoenix Island called Freedom Town is the protagonist Prof. Adam Stone, an asthmatic Professor of Botany who is joined by Allen Smith and Truth. On the flip side is Ifa Grange, another botanist whose father was a herbalist before he was killed in the war. He is joined by Reed Poseidon (page 347) who took total control of the cities through propaganda and force.
Freedom Town like Phoenix rose from decay and bloodbath. It recorded that, during the civil war, the heart of the people became the heart of beasts, with tattered lifeless bodies in their hundreds littering the streets.
It was rumoured that there were mysterious beings that fed on the souls of men at dusk. Like meat in a blender they met face to face with doom and fell in pieces. When all prospects of peace failed, nuclear weapons were launched. Radiation vaporised men and beasts alike and flesh melted like wax with fervent heat and that was the end of Africa and her black heritage as cloud of toxins made visibility hard to keep track of things.
The peace the people fought for is narrowed down to the one their state of mind could summon, if it could. Two of the characters in the story: Koran Azan and Aja contended that no one has ever left freedom town and wholly returned alive. “It is true that they now have more trees than men. And just when it seemed they were rebuilding the world, their innate drive for destruction unleashed the final blow when the war broke out. Cities turned to ashes by bombs and biological weapons and all they could do was look at them from distance.”
The new world of David and Adolf emerged in Killeen bemoaning the drastic increase in the number of people murdered all around the United States leaving only five percent of the murderers in custody.
Professor Adam Stone retires in his laboratory armed with different samples of plants. He hears voices of mockers as they narrate moments of torment, torture, heartbreaks and set back. His theory and research moved outside the parametres of sciences into fantasy.
The author has, through this book, raised the consciousness of the living organisms in our environment, they might one day rise up to wage war against us.
Darksand is laced with a highly descriptive approach. The use of simile helps to flower it and make the reader want to read it to the end. One thing noticeable in the book is the repeated use of ‘synchronously’ in several pages of the 33 chapter book. This is an overkill. The proofreading is clinically done, and It is recommended to students of environment sciences and writers interested in fiction stories.