{"id":5558,"date":"2022-09-12T19:11:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T19:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5558"},"modified":"2022-09-27T13:01:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T13:01:31","slug":"o2-arena-by-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5558","title":{"rendered":"O2 Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

O2<\/sub> Arena<\/em><\/strong> by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy\u2019s Edge<\/em>, November 2021)1<\/sup> opens with a short fight section before the story flashbacks to a point a few months earlier where the narrator, a new student at the Academy of Laws, is listening to his induction lectures. We later learn that the academy is located in a future Nigeria where climate change has damaged the atmosphere so badly that people need masks and portable air when they go outside (and where they use oxygen as a currency):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. Oduwole was at the podium now. The Head of Hostels began by stating that the generators would be on until midnight for reading and for the making of breathable air. After midnight, we would revert to our O2<\/sub> cylinders which we must keep by our bedsides throughout the night.
The tuition was expensive but was only meant to cover the central hall\u2019s oxygen generation when lectures were on. O2<\/sub> masks filtered the bad air temporarily, for the brief periods when moving between places. O2<\/sub> cylinders were for longer periods when there were no O2<\/sub> generators.
We weren\u2019t allowed to be in the hostels during the day when lectures were on, for any reasons. She didn\u2019t care if you were a girl on your flow, no matter how heavy. And this was apparently the only example she felt obligated to give.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

During this series of lectures the narrator goes outside the hall for a break and meets Ovole, a female friend\/undisclosed love interest. During their bantering exchanges we find out she has cancer (\u201cDo you want to feel [the tumour]?\u201d she asks at one point).
After several pages of the above, and other data dump information about the narrator\u2019s academy and society (various forms of institutional and political oppression make the narrator struggle to breath in more ways than one it would seem), the story kicks up a gear when he decides to visit his old gang on the mainland, a part of the story that has some interesting local colour. When the narrator later talks to an old gang acquaintance, he learns that Dr Umez, one of the induction lecturers, has a reputation for molesting both male and female students. Then, when the narrator tells the acquaintance that he needs to earn some money (for Ovole\u2019s medical needs), they go to the O2<\/sub> arena and watch a cage fight that ends when one of the combatants is killed.
The narrator subsequently decides not to take the risk of entering the cage fights, but (spoiler) he then learns that Ovoke is in hospital and needs expensive ICU treatment. So, after a visit to hospital to see Ovoke and her parents, he returns to the arena and enters the fights. After a vicious bout he kills his opponent and wins a substantial prize pot, but it is too late\u2014Ovoke has died in the meantime.
The story closes with the narrator using the prize money to form his own gang, and their first action is the killing of the abusive Dr Umez.
This is a bit of a mixed bag. The opening set-up (about ten pages) is overlong and plodding, and the story only really gets going when the narrator goes to the mainland. I also didn\u2019t care for the political messages that were constantly telegraphed throughout the story (\u201cYou see, the rich deserved to breathe\u201d, \u201cShe thought she would be nothing in a patriarchal society that valued men for their ability to provide, and women for reproduction\u201d, etc., etc.\u2014the author is not a fan of show don\u2019t tell). On the other hand the mainland setting and culture is interesting, as is the idea of oxygen as a currency\u2014so a promising piece, but not an even or polished one (its Nebula Award and Hugo nominations way overrate the story).
** (Average). 8, 150 words. Story link<\/a>.

1. This story was (unusually) reprinted in Apex<\/a><\/em>, another online magazine, two months later. I cannot see the point of Galaxy\u2019s Edge<\/em> putting it online for a month and then taking it down, only to let another publication reprint it almost immediately (my understanding is that most venues have a period of exclusivity in their contracts).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O2 Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy\u2019s Edge, November 2021)1 opens with a short fight section before the story flashbacks to a point a few months earlier where the narrator, a new student at the Academy of Laws, is listening to his induction lectures. We later learn that the academy is located in a future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1297],"tags":[17,50,548,1300,1299,7,1298],"class_list":["post-5558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki","tag-17","tag-50","tag-climate-change","tag-future-nigeria","tag-galaxys-edge","tag-novelette","tag-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5558"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5721,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5558\/revisions\/5721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}