Zoo City

by Lauren Beukes

Book, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

813

Genres

Collections

Your library, Kindle, Untitled collection, Wishlist, To read, Favorites, Read but unowned, Currently reading

Publication

Angry Robot (2010), Paperback

Description

"Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things. To save herself, she has to find the hardest thing of all - the truth. Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a client turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons. Being hired by famously reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass, marked by their animals, live in the shadow of the undertow. Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the underbelly of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own. Set in a wildly re-imagined Johannesburg, it swirls refugees, crime, the music industry, African magic and the nature of sin together into a heady brew"--Bookseller's website.… (more)

Media reviews

The Guardian

It's a style that can be challenging, and the thriller plot – involving a reclusive, ghastly music producer (like a dreadfully gone-to-seed South African Simon Cowell) and an unfortunate pair of X-Factor-ish teen-pop twins – isn't much help. In the proud tradition of Chandler and Hammett,

possibly Beukes herself isn't sure who did what to whom, in what order and why, on the way to a supremely messy and disgusting climax. But like Gibson, she brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now. What her many fans will remember, and value, is deadbeat Zinzi's personal journey, towards a frail but determined integrity.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy

A dark urban fantasy set in Johannesburg provides the setting for a missing persons case. For those that have got past that first sentence which only gives the tiniest of brief outlines that this book contains I'll add a bit more detail. Zinzi December has to carry around a Sloth everywhere she

goes. Her companion gives her two things: A gift, in Zinzi's case this is the ability to find lost things, and also protection from the Undertow, a blackness that would literally swallow her up in a very unpleasant way. The downside to being animalled is that to get one you must have committed a murderous act. Zinzi also has to pay off huge debts that she ran up from her junkie days and to pay them off she is working for a 419 scammer sending out those e-mails that look so enticing but which first require you to pay a small fee in order to get your hands on a fortune. In the meantime, Zinzi also uses her gift to find those small things that everyone is always losing but when her latest client is murdered just prior to pay-day then she must take on a job that she never likes doing, find a missing person. In this case it's the female half of twins who are the latest music sensation who's disappeared just prior to finishing off their latest album and their producer hires Zinzi to locate her.

The story gives a fresh spin on an old tale with finely rendered locales and fully fleshed out characters which make reading this book an absolute pleasure even though the themes are on the seedier side of life. Throughout the story there are also articles detailing some of the themes of the book as well as faux reviews and extracts from books which add to the detail for the reader and don't interfere with the flow of the narrative at all. It's all very well done. Lauren Beukes will definitely be an author I look out for in future.

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LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan

In the nineties, something strange happened. For anyone committing a bad enough crime, an animal appeared. This animal had no connection to the personality of the criminal or the nature of the crime. A vicious murderer could get a Butterfly, a streetwise pusher a Bunny, an Afghani Warlord a

Penguin. But this animal, like a familiar, follows the person closely, for the rest of their lives – until the Undertow comes to claim him or her when they die. A bit of a social stigma? Like you wouldn’t believe. In gritty, dirty Johannesburg, the “zoos” are everybody’s favorite scapegoats – regardless of color. But there’s an upside to it as well. The animal gives it’s human a special ability. Nothing too fancy – but lightweight “muti”, which might just be possible to make a living from. It isn’t like there are too many options for a zoo otherwise.

Zinzi December has a Sloth, a bad conscience and the ability to find missing things. It allows her to make some money, tracking down car keys, wallets and watches. It isn’t enough to pay off her huge drug debt, earned in the years before Sloth and prison, though. So on the side she’s also involved in the African variety of internet scam mailing. She lives on the bad side of the bad side of town, but her life is no worse than could be expected. Until one of her clients turn up brutally murdered and she’s drawn into the underbelly of the music industry, that is. Which doesn’t seem to respect the fact that Zinzi doesn’t do missing persons cases. Not even one little bit.

Wow, what a ride this book was! Fast, hard and gritty and with a drive that kept the pages turning. In the end, I couldn’t put it down, but had to do the last hundred pages in one go. Beukes brand of urban fantasy is original and exciting, and the sense of setting is magnificent. It’s a joy to read something that feels so contemporary and urban, and yet so genuinely African. Detailed and full of flavor, it really feels like you’re riding the streets of Johannesburg in a crappy old Capri right along with Zinzi. Who is everything you could possibly wish for in a noir heroine, by the way. Tough and funny, but with a complexity and some dark secrets. Some aspects of her and this world are left unexplained, making at least me hope for a sequel. Even though the book’s ending is pretty beautiful. Recommended for just about anyone, with the disclaimer that there are some pretty grisly scenes in here.

My edition of Zoo City also included some prize-winning short stories relating to Beukes’ debut, Moxyland. I did take the publisher’s advice though, and save those for after I’ve read that one. Which won’t be too long, I’m already eager for more by this writer.

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LibraryThing member clfisha

Sometimes a book comes along that makes you feel the author wrote it just for you, a noir/dark urban fantasy? So the caveat is I loved this book but I might be a tad blind to it's faults.

Cue blurb:
“Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But

when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.”

Yes its takes the animal familiar trope and twists it into an exciting, innovative and most interestingly; a very modern fantasy. The setting and the characters are the highlights of this book: reality taken and twisted with a highly flawed and potential unlikeable female protagonist (sadly that's refreshing) that is so well written I was rooting for her all the way.

The setting is so rich not only because it’s set in unfamiliar (to me) South Africa but also there are so many topics (very well researched) seamlessly combined to create a vibrant, believable, noirish world, from the fraudulent scams of the spam emailers to the seedy side of the music and journalism industries and further into the impacts of clashing cultures, of rich versus poor and those immigrants feeling from war torn areas. This is the hook on which the fantastical elements are hung and it grounds the story and gives it greater depth.

In addition Beukes uses the literary device of inserting articles, interviews, blogs, emails and transcripts works (written by others). This works amazingly well, taking her idea in new and interesting directions as well as providing context. It’s not gimmicky or jarring but a central part of the story; how does the USA handle these misfits? how does this affect the old prison hierarchy? How does it help or hinder people?

Don't get me wrong there are dramatic action sequences too, it is at heart a twisting crime plot* with some loud, fast paced action sequences, the full gamut of human emotion, love interests, voodoo magicks and enough ne'er do wells to make the Maltese Falcon to look tame. The pacing felt great (although not tight) as I was too hooked to care if it meandered. The ending was perfect noir and
I fervently hope there will be no sequel because how can you top that.

So I may be blind to its faults but to honest if you like fantasy/noir or just looking for something different then it’s worth your time. This is Beukes second book (the 1st I haven't read) but there is nothing wrong with starting here.. I mean why not start with the best?

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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes is classed as an urban fantasy. Set in Johannesburg in 2011, we find a world much like our own, although there is one strange phenomenon whereby people who commit murder or are responsible for another’s death, find themselves linked to an animal. This animal becomes your

lifelong companion, and if your animal dies, you also lose your life. Even separation from your animal causes an unbearable sickness. The plus side to being linked to an animal is they often bestow magical talents on their human.

The story centres around Zinzi December, ex-druggie, ex-con, linked with a sloth and having the talent to find lost things. ZinZi ekes out a meagre living by using her talent and as she owes money to the mob, she also does jobs for them, from impersonating a refugee for a con to writing scam e-mails. Desperately needing money, she accepts a case to find a missing pop star, a young girl who is the other half of a up and coming act with her twin brother.

It took me awhile to really get into this story, but Lauren Beukes writes with a vivid, dark force and before you know it, you are caught up. Between the story chapters are chapters that consist of newspaper or magazine articles, e-mails and essays on “Animalism” which helps the reader understand this linking concept. I liked how the author anchored her story in the here and now by using references to current pop icons (from Britney Spears to Lady Gaga), to world events, and popular slang. Overall, a flawed but interesting concept, and, given the open ending, perhaps a sequel will be forthcoming.

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LibraryThing member alexdallymacfarlane

Recently I've had a running critique in the back of my mind as I've been reading a lot of books. Even the ones I ultimately like and would recommend as fun reads. Not Zoo City.

The premise is that, beginning not many years ago, people who commit murder (and possibly other serious crimes?) acquire an

animal companion via some mysterious force commonly called the Undertow. The animals can survive the human's death, but not the other way round, and the animals must remain in close proximity to the human. This also bequeaths the human with a magical power. If that sounds cutesy, trust me, it's not. For one thing, there are supplementary texts between some of the chapters that give insights into how the wider world treats the "animalled"/"zoos". One such texts is a set of three statements from prisoners around the world. In one country, prisoners are tortured by having their animals removed to a far distance. Meanwhile the Chinese execute zoos without trial, and in many Western nations zoos are severely discriminated against. South African zoos are protected by law, but most wind up in ghettos anyhow.

It's not some analogy for race relations, though. It's just real - and that's what this book is, overall. For all that it's a book with animal companions and odd magic, it feels amazingly real. The world is difficult and dark and sometimes there's still hope (and sometimes there's not, and sometimes there's ambiguity). Beukes did her research. Even better, she cares about the people whose lives she represents.

The main character is Zinzi, a young woman who fell in with drugs and gangsters, unintentionally got her brother killed (and got her Sloth), went to prison, got let out on good behaviour and now writes 419 scams and finds lost things (her magical power) to try and pay back her old drug debt. When one of her clients is killed and the police take her latest pay, she gives in to an offer of finding a lost popstar. Things get messier from there: the popstar twins are both in danger, homeless zoos are being killed and no one cares, Zinzi's former lover (who is a dick) gets back into her life and her current lover (who is not) may be leaving her. Zinzi cannot locate the missing popstar with her magic, so she resorts to detective work. She tracks down celebrity journalists and talks to a sangoma in the Mai Mai healer's market for spiritual advice. She takes risks, acts selfishly and considerately, although not always at the best times for each. Things go very wrong for her. She succumbs to unhappiness while trying to grasp at hope.

About the only part of the book that I could critique is the climactic scene, which was a little bit rushed. I didn't particularly care.

Zoo City will probably be one of my favourite reads of 2011 even at the other end of the year. It's weird and interesting and clever and non-faily and I loved it. If you're lacking that kind of thing in your to-read pile, I recommend checking out this one.

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LibraryThing member sunjata

A noir-SF set in near-future South Africa is an exciting proposition but this didn't quite work for me. The narrator is 'animalled' after causing the death of her brother and is stuck in the underworld, scraping a living using her newly-found magic ability to find lost things. This ability then

gets her entangled in a mystery of a missing pop star. The plot is overly complicated and somewhat confusing. The achingly hip prose grates quite quickly. And the near-future setting will, I suspect, date pretty fast - it's so near future that nothing seems to have changed except that murderers get an animal for life. The resolution, when it comes, is unsatisfying. There are some good scenes, however, and the gritty underworld is portrayed rather well. I'd be interested to read Beukes's first novel and would certainly check out her future work but this one was a disappointment.

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LibraryThing member thenumeraltwo

Procedural set in Johannesburg with a Pullman twist.

I still can't decide if I like procedurals. For the first 80% I race through them, enjoying the pulpiness and trying to second guess the plot. They genuinely quicken the pulse and delay bed time. But as denouement approaches I get turned off and

start to rationalise away my enjoyment. Probably just being a snob again

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LibraryThing member Leia-Ann

Review Summary: I have rarely read a book that I so thoroughly enjoyed and admired - and this comes from someone with a degree in Literature working postgrad in Classics!

Full Review: Zinzi December is in a heap of trouble, and not just with the police. She's got a guilty conscience, gets forced by

poverty and desperation into working for an even guiltier group of people, trying to uncover a guilty secret before the guilty get her killed or locked up.

Zoo City is not only an incredible adventure and first-rate Urban Fantasy, it also regards issues of prejudice, muti (South African traditional medicine controversial for its occasional use of human body parts), substance abuse, immigration, poverty, crime and punishment and what people are willing do for success and money. However, it regards these issues with so light a hand that you almost don't notice yourself thinking about these things until a few days later.

Using a first person present tense narrative is something that takes guts in spades, something which very few writers can pull of successfully, but Lauren Beukes rises to the challenge with seemingly effortless ease and grace. I think that the frequent breaks in the narrative by way of newspaper reports, magazine articles and other informative pieces provide just the correct amount of distance and explanation to keep the story fresh and fast-paced without feeling overdone or fake. The present tense gives this story a feeling of immediacy and urgency, while the first person draws you right into the thoughts, secrets and actions of the protagonist, Zinzi - and what a brilliant protagonist she is!

Zinzi is an amazingly complete and compelling character - smart, intelligent, cynic and brave, she's flawed, in some ways very deeply so, but these very flaws strengthen her credibility. Zinzi grew up comfortably as a member of one of South Africa's emerging black upper-middle class, to go to university and become a respected journalist and develop a nasty drug habit. However, as she says, that is her Former Life, before she had Sloth.

In this alternative version of Johannesburg in 2011, those who have committed a crime find their guilt manifested in the form of a symbiotic animal magically tied to them (or at least, that's one theory; the appearance of aposymbiots is rather recent, still being studied and not fully understood) and granting them minor, mostly useless gifts, called shavi.

The animals are referred to as mashavi and with an Animal comes the Undertow - a cloud of blackness that will sooner or later swallow and/or obliterate the Animalled person. You can never be certain of when the Undertow will take you, for take you it will, eventually. The only thing you can be certain about is that if your Animal dies, the Undertow will come for almost instantaneously; yet while your Animal remains alive you're still living on borrowed time.

Some of the examples of shavi mentioned includes being able to find the scene of a murder, being charming, shielding from magic and inciting or heightening lust slightly. Zinzi's mashavi is Sloth, and her shavi is to see the connections people have to their "lost things" - small objects of personal value to the person in question that may or may not be currently lost.

Zinzi can see either the person with a cloud of the objects important to that person tied to them in a way which she describes as "a thread" between the person and the objects. So, it follows that when touching an object that's important to someone, she can feel the "thread" pulling the object back to the person, and then it's just a matter of following the sometimes frustratingly frail thread and finding the person who lost something for some quick cash and the ability to eat that night.

Now "Animalled" and therefore marked as a criminal and possibly dangerous to the rest of society, struggling to find work, acceptance and absolution, Zinzi's living in the most dangerous of neighbourhoods surrounded by the most desperate denizens of society and making ends meet (and trying to repay her drug debts) by writing letters for 419 scams and hoping to stumble across things people lost that are valuable enough that the person would pay her for returning it.

This is how she ends up being suspected of murder, being contacted by dodgy individuals working for a huge-name music producer with a questionable past and looking for a teenaged superstar that no one must know has gone missing. As if that's not enough, her lover just found out that his wife and children didn't die in the DRC civil war, as he had thought, with the always-present additional threat of the Undertow.

I do have some very slight criticisms, mainly because I'm a detail-oriented control freak: I'd have liked to know what exactly the aposymbiosis is - is it a manifestation of guilt? If it is, why is it that some sociopaths who feel no guilt over their crimes still find themselves Animalled? And if it's not, why is it that only those guilty of the most grievous of crimes have one? And who decides what makes up those crimes that deserve an Animal?

Also, why are all the Animals written in Capital Letters? I don't know about you, but when I see Capital Letters strewn around like that, I hear the words spoken in the booming voice of a Cecil B. Demille version of God, although I'm fully willing to admit that that is my own issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the book. Still, it's a bit jarring to read about this one's Cobra and that one's Butterfly and that one's Hyena, etc. with constantly booming echoes.

I will also admit that I was at first slightly uncomfortable with the thought of a white woman writing the personal narrative of a black woman, especially in this society of ours in this time we find ourselves.

Lauren Beukes explains it beautifully and sensibly in a guest post for The World SciFi Blog, arguing that when we write, we are basically always writing the other, using our imagination to fill in the gaps of that which we didn't actually live and experience, but which our characters did.

This is a completely valid point of view which makes a lot of sense and which I fully support, although I myself would not yet feel comfortable writing in the voice of a black person in South Africa (which is most probably a personal failing!), given my historical and very often very largely invisible privileges that came with growing up white mostly in post-Apartheid South Africa (including but not limited to: being able to study by electricity, living in a house, never going to bed hungry, never having to go without blankets and sweaters and shoes winter because there just isn't money to buy it, etc. etc. which, unfortunately, is still the predominant experience of most South Africans in a society in which the chances of your suffering abject poverty increase dramatically the darker your skin is), but I truly admire Lauren for her braveness, integrity and dedication in worrying, in her words, more about whether Zinzi was Zinzi enough than worrying about whether she was black enough.

Despite these nitpicks, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was not only a great read, it was a thoughtful read, without shoving its thoughtfulness down your throat or hitting you over the head with it at all. The writing, too, is beautifully crafted with some unexpectedly hilarious and unpretentiously sensitive and touching moments. The setting comes alive through Lauren Beukes' incredibly vivid descriptions and the slums of the city of Johannesburg almost becomes its own character in this book, which I found delightful (and envy-worthy! How many writers can do that, seriously?).

I don't know what else to say about without spoiling the book, so I'll stop here and just say: this book, although not for the overly sensitive or young, is amazing, if you're willing to deal with some hard facts of reality when reading. The characters are full and real, the setting is so familiar (at least to me :) ) and yet so filled with new and strange things that it remains eternally fascinating, and the story is a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat whirlwind which will keep the adrenaline pumping to the very last page. Also, I'd just like to add, I thought the ending was amazing. I'm hard pressed to think of another character that I loved and admired as much as I loved and admired Zinzi in those last couple of paragraphs.

Read it as soon as you possibly can - and please let me know what you thought of it! Even if it is months or years later and you absolutely hated it, I truly want to know.

This is a book I'll be reading again and again and again, and I hope the same is true for you.

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LibraryThing member jackdeighton

Zinzi December is an aposymbiont (who are derogatorily termed as animalled.) Aposymbionts are individuals who, as a result of committing a serious crime, have gained an animal companion with whom they have a psychic link, in the process acquiring an attribute. This is not quite the same as in

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which Beukes does refer to in the text, as in his universe the animals begin attachment at birth. Zinzi’s companion is a sloth and her attribute is sensing lost objects. She can follow psychic threads to recover things. This is her apparent job but to pay her debts she moonlights as an email scammer. She is engaged by two rather unsavoury individuals (both animalled) to find a lost pop star and is drawn into a world of intrigue, backstabbing and murder.

Narrated in an urgent present tense, apart from the interpolations of cod press articles and psychological papers fleshing out the background, the novel is of a piece with the thriller feel of much near future SF. But Beukes is good at this - very good indeed - the gritty realism makes her scenario entirely believable while you’re immersed in it. That the novel takes place in South Africa may be one factor in its appeal. African phrases and words are utilised frequently but not so as to obfuscate or confuse. The acceptance of magic is a given (as it may be in “our” South Africa.)

Where the story veers away from thriller SF into fantasy is that the transformation of the world to one where animals can become “familiars” is not given much of a rational explanation.

Zinzi and her boyfriend Benoît, whose animal is a mongoose, are well drawn, nuanced characters with full backstories which mercifully emerge from the story as it is told rather than being dumped on the reader. Others are equally believable.

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LibraryThing member reading_fox

Weird, almost urban fantasy but with more of a SF feel to it. The basic premise is that back in '96 (or so no-one knows for sure) there was a moment of epiphany and anyone since then who committed some form or serious crime, (which involves them feeling guilt) gained a phyiscal incarnation of that

guilt - and animal soulmate. The species of animal doesn't seem to relate to anything inparticular - neithercrime nor background nor geography. They have to care for this animal - if it dies before then they get swalloed up by a black cloud - the Undertow. At the same time they also gain a magical power of some minor form. I think although it wasn't explicitly clear that mgaic entered the world at the same moment. The animalled are naturally shuned from the remaining polite society although there are plenty of shared arenas.

Our particular heroine was a high living music journalist. Now she's living in a shanty town near Jo'berg off of her ability to find things. Her animal is a Sloth, which doens't do mcuh except eat leaves.

TBC

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LibraryThing member gregandlarry

Set in South Africa. Fascinating concept withe well developed characters and interesting plot devices.

LibraryThing member kaipakartik

This book is a strange beast. Some sections especially the news reports are well written. The pop culture references(especially a nod to His dark materials by Philip Pullman is apt) but some sections just fall flat and require that you plod through them.
The story is set in South Africa where

criminals are attached to an animal so that having an animal becomes a marker for having a nefarious past. It turns out that these animals also bestow on the humans certain abilities. The protagonist Zinzi December has the ability to find lost things. She is caught in a drug scandal and needs to pay back the mafioso so to speak so she takes up a job she hates, a missing persons job. The novel then proceeds in standard noir fashion to uncover a conspiracy that is larger than what anyone anticipated. There are other animalled characters, an inside guide through the music production business and some gritty fight sequences.
What is nice about zoo city is the fact that the world is incredibly well realized. Lauren Beukes has given the setting a great deal of though. The prose is good as well.
I liked Zoo City for the background noise but not for its plot. I wouldn't call it exceptional but its a good read nonetheless.

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LibraryThing member paulkeller

Zoo city paints and amazing picture of contemporary south africa/johannesburg. reading through this brought back many distant memories from a short trip to jo'burg in 2008. I alos love the idea of the animalled and in particular how the narrative is supported with made-up science and news

reporting. The plot is a bit of a stretch and the big climax at the end is really too much. not sure if i managed to keep track of who does what to whom here. Nevertheless this is well worth reading especially for the warlord with the penguin substory.

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LibraryThing member adpaton

What a pleasure to read a thought-provoking and exciting book set in Jozi rather than the ubiquitous Cape Town: Zinzi December is from an upper-middle class but drugs were her downfall and a series of unexplored events resulted in her shooting her brother and becoming 'animalled' - the fate of

those who have sinned, and all that protects them from the 'Undertow'.

Zinzi has a sloth who accompanies her everywhere sinec the animalled cannot bear to be parted from what Phillip Pullman would call their 'daemons'. The animals bestow upon their alter-egos a special power: in Zinzi's case it is the ability to find lost things and after hitting rock bottom and spending time in prison, she uses her ability [plus her abusing her persuasive writing skills in the creation of 419 e-mail scams] to earn money to pay her drug debts.

Missing persons, murder, and music journalism, Zinzi moves between Hillbrow and the infamous Zoo City, a ghetto where the animalled live, Rosebank and Westcliff, Newtown and even the soulless midrand suburbs, as she and Sloth move from slum to mansion, club to traditional market, in a somewhat noir and always understated adventure that could only play out in South Africa. Impressive, imaginative and compulsively readable.

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LibraryThing member Arconna

When my friend and I asked Lauren Beukes to describe Zoo City, she understandably remarked that the book is rather difficult to explain. Zoo City isn't like a lot of books. On the one hand it is a noir murder mystery with a semi-New Weird slant, but on the other it is a novel about refugees, the

music industry, South Africa, guilt, revenge, drugs, prejudice, poverty, and so much more. It is a gloriously complicated novel with equally complicated characters. You might even call it a brilliant example of worldbuilding from outside of the traditional modern fantasy genre.

Zoo City is concerned with Zinzi December, a former convict who, like many others, must bear the
mark of her crime in the form of a semi-intelligent animal -- in her case, it's a sloth. But there's also the Undertow -- a mysterious force that some claim is Hell reaching out for the damned souls of aposymbiots like Zinzi. Aposymbiosis, however, isn't all bad. Every aposymbiot is gifted with an ability. Some can create protective charms while others can dampen magical fields. Zinzi can see the threads that connect people to their lost things. And that's how she survives: finding things for people for a modest fee. But when she takes on a job from a music producer to find a missing girl, things get sticky. Her employer isn't who he seems and the person she's trying to find might be running for a good reason. Toss in her debts to a shady organization of email scammers, her complicated relationship with her refugee lover, a murder, and the seedy underbelly of a Johannesburg trying to deal with its new "problem" and you have a complex story about South Africa, its people, and its culture.

Zoo City is immense in its complexity, despite having the allure of a typical genre romp. Trying to describe the novel will always leave out some salient detail, which will prevent one from conveying a true sense of the novel. It is, in part, a noir crime novel, but it is also a foray into South Africa's present. What is surprising about Zoo City is that it breaks the fantasy tradition of disconnection from reality -- what some might call the escapist nature of the genre. Zoo City roots the reader in the now, altering details as necessary to convey a world that has been changed by its supernatural affliction (aposymbiosis); it is a novel with an intimate relationship to South Africa's present (and, by extension, its past). For that reason, I think Zoo City would benefit from multiple readings. The novel's cultural layers are palimpsest-ial in nature, each element bleeding into another so that almost every detail, allusion, and reference becomes integral to the development of the novel's characters and the narrative itself. I consider this to be a good thing because the novel doesn't suffer from feeling disconnected from the world its characters are supposed to occupy (an alternate-history near-today) -- that is that the characters are so firmly rooted in Beukes' South African milieu that they don't read like characters transplanted from elsewhere.

Being so rooted, Zoo City is as much about its world as it is about its characters. The first-person-present narrative style allows for Zinzi's voice to dominate, but that doesn't prevent Beukes from providing useful insight into the various other characters around her main character. While the focus on Zinzi certainly shows a lopsided view of the world, it doesn't fail to show the wider context in which Zinzi has become a part. Zinzi's detective role, in a way, is a duality: she uses it first as a survival mechanism, but then as a way to dig into her own personal reality, discovering the truth about her friends and even herself. It is through this process that the narrative's cultural strands build on top of one another, providing the reader with a progressively deepening view of the characters and their interaction with the world around them. Zinzi's refugee lover (Benoit), for example, is a man with his own mysteries, and it is inevitably through Zinzi's various other doings, some of which she has hidden even from those that know her, that she not only explains the world from which Benoit has come, but also discovers more about who Benoit is/was and how new events in her life will change the dynamics of their relationship and their relationship to the world around them. Throughout all of this, Zinzi's humor, sarcasm, and cynicism pokes through, coloring her character and her vision of the South Africa of Zoo City (by extension, the reader's view is also colored by these interjections).

It is this attention to detail and character that I loved about Zoo City. Instead of focusing undo attention to its plot, the novel finds a balance between both plot and character. Neither is written at the expense of the other, but the characters also seem to steal the show because they are all incredibly flawed, and deal with those flaws in (sometimes annoyingly) human ways. Perfection is an impossibility in Beukes' narrative. Zinzi has many advantages -- her magical ability and her attitude, which she uses to intimidate her "enemies -- but she is also limited, and knows it. Her actions are appropriately influenced by this knowledge; reading her thoughts as she comes to terms with these flaws, particularly in bad situations, is an amusing, if not voyeuristic, experience.

Neither plot or character are perfectly in-sync, however. The ending, I would argue, felt somewhat rushed and without full resolution (by this I don't mean the last pages, which I think were appropriate based on what occurs in the novel); in a sense, I think the ending shies away from the noir crime narrative Zoo City started with and delves into darker themes that might have been better served by stronger foreshadowing in the novel. Zinzi's voice and her character flaws do, to some extent, overwhelm these minor issues, making the ending suspenseful and (slightly) insane, and I suspect that this line of thought is more a nitpick than a sustainable criticism. What I did enjoy about the ending, though, was that it was not pretty; there are no grand heroes to save the day without a scratch here (and, to be honest, there aren't that many grand heroes that save the day to begin with in the novel) -- Beukes is fairly unrepentant about how she treats her characters. The unresolved ending might also make it possible for a sequel, which I think would be a great addition to Beukes' oeuvre, since it might offer further closure to the narrative strands that, like Zinzi's gift, are still pulling for that distant "end."

Overall, though, I think Zoo City has pretty much secured its place in my top novels of 2011, and of the decade. Zoo City is cultural studies in action, and a brilliant piece of work. I've already found myself leaning ever closer to considering South Africa as the second half of what will form my PhD dissertation. Whether it will be influential on SF/F over the next decade is impossible to predict, but I do know that the novel has already begun influencing me, much as District 9 did when I first saw it last year, and much like future projects by Beukes and Blomkamp undoubtedly will. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go read Moxyland.

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LibraryThing member justifiedsinner

A post cyber-punk riff on Philip Pullman's animal animas. Murderers get an animal companion. If it dies a black wraith comes and drags them to hell. Set in Jo'burg. Very good. The best of the current crop of 2011 SF award winners.

LibraryThing member dknippling

This book had flaws. It bit off more than it could chew. The middle lagged, and 3/4 of the way through the book, there's Part Two. The copyediting in here averaged about one error/4 pages and got worse toward the end.

DON'T CARE!

Freaking brilliant, read it. The ending paid for all.

LibraryThing member rivkat

All of a sudden, murderers acquire animals; when they die, a black cloud called the Undertow takes them. Additional magic also comes to the world, usually strongest among the animalled, or zoos as they’re also known. The South African protagonist has an animal because her actions killed her

brother, back when she was a junkie. Now she scrapes by running email scams and occasionally using her magic to find lost things. When she gets involved in the search for a missing pop star, her life gets even more dangerous. Really fabulous worldbuilding and an appealling but not idealized protagonist; I hope Beukes writes more in this world.

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LibraryThing member Tsana

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes first came to my attention when it won a bunch of awards, notably the Arthur C Clarke in 2011. It caught my attention further because it’s set in South Africa rather than the all-too-common US. The other thing that piqued my interest was Galactic Suburbia discussing the

premise, many episodes ago (and actually, I think that happened after I bought the ebook from Angry Robot, but never mind).

Zoo City is set in Johannesburg in a contemporary world with a supernatural twist: people who have committed crimes have their guilt manifest as an animal. The animal is bound to them, a bit like a familiar, particularly as it comes with some minor magical ability, and if it dies, its person dies shortly afterwards. Different countries responded to the animal shift in different ways. In South Africa, the animaled are seen as a lower class, have difficulty finding jobs and live on the fringes of society. Other countries are much less nice to their animaled.

Zinzi has a sloth and her ability if finding lost things by following the tenuous threads that bind people to the things they care about. A job finding a ring dropped down a drain doesn’t end as she hoped and Zinzi finds herself thrust into slightly more dubious work. Things spiral out of control and by the end of the book she has had to fight for her life more than once.

I enjoyed Zinzi as a character. She’s tough because she has to be to survive, which makes her a bit kick-arse but not unrealistically so. I liked that Beukes avoided a particular cliche near the start which a different author might have used to show that Zinzi’s not really a bad person and has a heart of gold deep down. Zinzi’s realist tendencies tend to win out over any feelings of sympathy she might feel towards strangers. Of course this doesn’t make her saint, but then if she were a saint, she wouldn’t have an animal. It was consistent and the exploration of the nature of guilt was aspect I liked.

Zoo City offers a sharp view into the edges of South African society. It is at times quite confronting and there is quite a bit of fast paced action interspersed with Zinzi’s more sedate attempts to work out what’s going on. From the first page I was impressed by Beukes’s tight writing which kept me interested all the way through to the end.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. The fantasy elements aren’t very strong (they only just register above the background level of real-world African mysticism which also features in the novel) and I think it would be enjoyed by a fantasy fans and non-fans alike. The insight into South African life is interesting and refreshing in the plethora of US-set urban fantasy books.

5 / 5 stars

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LibraryThing member amanderson

What a pleasantly dark and creative fantasy and mystery, set in Johannesburg, all slangy and urban slummy and vividly described. It has a real sense of place. It takes Philip Pullman's Golden Compass series idea of "daemons" and turns it inside out and creepy. Zinzi December is an educated young

woman - and black, I think, not so common in the fantasy world - with a sloth as her animal (daemon). She spent some time in jail, you see, and these days, animal spirits turn up to accompany who commit a dark act. The "Zoo Plague" started happening some years back and the "Animalled" experience lots of prejudice, as you might imagine.

Zinzi grew up well off and worked as a journalist, but then things went wrong for her. Now, along with acquiring Sloth, she has a gift (or curse) that lets her track down lost things, and a bad part time gig writing 419/Nigerian scam type emails. When she's broke and on a job for a little old lady who then turns up dead, Zinzi is forced to take on a job for a scummy music producer to find a lost young pop musician girl. She finds her bad habits, cynicism and her conscience warring with each other as she turns detective to find out what's really going on.

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LibraryThing member Shrike58

This novel is located in a very interesting space between urban fantasy, true crime, and what can only be called magical realism. Our protagonist Zinzi has descended into a new class of pariah, where you are marked by your past criminality with an animal companion and which gifts its human partner

with a closer connection to the spirit world. Highly colored by the author's past endeavors as a journalist, the plot is ostensibly about how Zinzi is reluctantly roped into trying to locate a missing child pop star; that this aspect of the book has a bit of a throwaway quality to it is the only reason I don't give this novel five stars. The real agenda with this novel seems to have more to do with providing a character study of Zinzi and less to do with the caper; Beukes still deserves all the praise she has received for this book.

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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

This seemed to me to be a great idea book. The author had a great idea (and the idea I liked, criminals with spirit animals is a rather cool idea, the creation of an othering by way of a visible burden of an animal, cool) but I didn't care for the characters and by the end of it didn't really care

who lived or died.

There were moments where I stopped and the book made me think about a big idea or it had me think of ways I would have done things but I found that that almost got in the way of the story instead of making it flow for me. It took me a while to read the book, with a few others interrupting it, and there was a few times that I almost had to force myself to keep going.

Am I sorry I read it? No. Is it my kind of read? No. Will I be reading more by this author? I doubt it.

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LibraryThing member LemonLover

I really liked the concept of this book and I really liked the main character. I was considering adding this book to my prestigious list of favourite books, but then it got bad. Really the book didn't need part 2. It was only 1/5th of the book and it would have been better with out it. Characters I

didn't think were important make an appearance. Apparently there is a serial killer? Some complex voodoo ritual, in vain?
[spoiler alert]
Every one dies? I took her most of the book to to solve the first mystery, I wish the second, and potentially more interesting part had been developed more. I don't really understand what was going on.

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LibraryThing member Vikz.Richards

Why did I read this book

I have wanted to read this book for some time. However, The hype that surrounded it made me hesitate. But, It's constant appearance on award lists encouraged me to finally dig it off the to be read shelves and read it.

enjoyability 1 star
I was pleasantly surprised. For

once, the book lived up to the hype. It was an interesting, disturbing and emotive read.

Accessibility 1 star

This is a relatively new book and therefore it's available in most formats. The E book (Kindle version) was good quality.

world building 1 star

The world of this book is a believable one. You are instantly immersed in the dingy, corrupt, future world, that will be South Africa.

language 1 star

The language mirrors the narrators character well, being grungy (street) enough to be believable, and of place, while still managing to be understandable.

Thematic Content 1 star

This books looks at issues of guilt and identity

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LibraryThing member Mardel

Zoo City has a great cover that represents the characters in the story very well...and those animals you see? they have a big part to play.

Zoo City is the first book in over a month that I was able to read in just a few days. feels good. I really enjoyed this novel.

Zinzi December (main character)

is an animalled....there are a lot of animalled people in Zoo City. It happens to people who have a huge load of guilt, and seems to be related to magical ability. The story takes place in South Africa and Ms Beukes does a wonderful job of painting word pictures of the places Zinzi goes; the slums of Zoo City, the slowly deteriating Jo'burg, the dusty streets of parts of the city.

An urban fantasy with a good mystery contained within, Zoo City is the story of how Zinzi, a finder of lost things, ends up pressured to find a missing person. This is something she usually does not do. There's quite a twist towards the end and a smaller twist after that. It's a hell of a book.

The dialogue was wonderfully real between characters. The narrative, first person present tense, was page turning. I enjoyed Zinzi's point of view. Zinzi doesn't always do wonderful things, but she's not living a girl scout life, either. She has quite a past.

The characters were extremely interesting, and each one stood on their own.
If you want to read an urban fantasy that is a bit different from any other you've read, this would be the one. If you enjoy reading "real" characters that aren't always the best behaved, but are people getting by the best they can, this is a book to read. Hell, if you enjoy a very good story - this is a good book.

I was thinking of using it for a giveaway, but then I kind of want to read it again.

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