Neo Africa

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

For whatever reason, Africa seems to be the one place that never gets better as time goes on. On occasion, fiction decides to shake things up. Africa doesn't necessarily get better, but it catches up technologically. What happens to places as bad as third-world Africa with an advancement in technology but no reduction in widespread poverty?

Cyberpunk, and lots of it. At best, Post Cyber Punk. The reason for its use is likely due to Cyberpunk becoming a discredited trope when it takes place in any other part of the world. Despite this application of the setting, and probably due to the stereotypes of Africa's climate, Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain is not so common with this trope.

Contrast Afrofuturism, which looks at Africa through a black cultural lens and, if not always optimistic, at least tries to avoid the stereotypes.

Examples of Neo Africa include:

Literature

  • The Ear, the Eye and the Arm takes place in Zimbabwe, in the year 2195.
  • In Otherland the Post Cyber Punk applies to everywhere in the world, but notable is that Renie and !Xabbu are from Durban, South Africa.
  • Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Ashraf Bey books are set in an alternate universe North Africa. As cyberpunk as it gets.
  • The Watekni subculture in a Twenty Minutes Into the Future Kenya in Ian McDonald's Chaga.
  • Zoo City is a Cyberpunk novel with fantasy elements set in South Africa. It has an endorsement from William Gibson himself and has the same kind of grey market protagonist that Gibson's novels favor.
  • Alastair Reynolds' novel Blue Remembered Earth is a subversion. While not everything is perfect in the African countries, they've become new economic and technological powers and the overall tone is quite optimistic. A Post Cyber Punk sensibility is present, but it's mostly set dressing.
  • Most of Nnedi Okorafor's books take place in a technologically updated future or alternate universe Africa that is also a Magical Land. Some examples are Zahrah the Windseeker, The Shadow Speaker, and Who Fears Death.

Live-Action TV

Tabletop Games

  • In the Trinity Roleplaying Game, Africa is a leading force in the far future Earth. It helps that Africa managed to avoid the worse damage of the Aberrant War, and the more modern Europe and North America got hit hard.
  • Transhuman Space is mostly preppy Post Cyber Punk. Except for Africa. Africa is still straight cyberpunk.

Video Games

  • Halo 2, where New Mombasa in Kenya is a high tech city and spaceport. At least when the game begins, before there's lots of Stuff Blowing Up...