Book Review: Once Upon a Purple Pill
Once upon a Purple Pill and A Field of Purple Dreams…When Fantasy meets Science Fiction
For this week’s book review, I wanted to explore genres in African writing that I haven’t read before. After wasting my money on a Nigerian vampire book that was a rip off of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and ‘The Originals’ TV show, ( story for another day), I was a little hesitant on what to read. That is, till I stumbled on ‘Once Upon a Purple pill’ by Eugene Odogwu.
About Once Upon a Purple Pill
Once Upon a Purple Pill is the first part of the series, ‘A Fall Town Fable‘ where science fiction is mixed with a healthy dose of fantasy.
In the book, The protagonist, Eli is a ‘joe’ one of the selected few who gain abilities after taking a special psyche pill called the vudu pills. The pill gives him the power to manipulate and create dreams, and he becomes a dream merchant, selling dreams to the people of fall town for a fee.
However business becomes slow when mysteriously, people in fall town stop dreaming, and dream matter is no longer easy to get. Eli decides to risk it all, especially his sanity, by going into the forbidden world of dreams known as N’halam, to get a raw supply of dream matter, a place no one has come back from with their minds intact.
Into the Story
The story is told with a mixture of English and creole lingo, in a simple and fluid way that makes the story easy to read and enjoy. It’s a simple story built on a complex subject, and the writer pulls this off perfectly by making the narrative easy to follow, even though it is science fiction, a genre ordinarily not for the faint of heart. It’s short and straight to the point, without wasting time building memento, like most science fiction books are known to do.
I truly enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it especially to those who enjoy science fiction/ fantasy books. The first part, ‘Once Upon a Purple Pill’ is free for you to download on Okadabooks, while the second part, ‘A field of purple dreams’ only cost 100 Naira. You can go ahead and check the story out. But don’t forget to share your thoughts with me in the comment section.
Till next week!
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