TITLE: The Invasion
AUTHOR: Harriet Digbori
REVIEWER: Salamatu Sule
The Invasion is a short story written by Harriet Digbori. Harriet is a fine, creative writer and her imaginative strength is amazing. With The Invasion, one could imagine a world of possibilities, and the story is a mirror of today’s reality.
Our current world is at the rising peak of innovation, technology and Artificial Intelligence. We constantly hear news of different Tech launches and Start Up disruptions. The Invasion tells this story. The story of innovation, technology and Human/Ai Bot relationship.
In reviewing the book, two things must be pointed out. One the creativity of a child. The book, tells us of a child – Kate Crock, the first daughter of the multimillion-dollar Crock family. She is seen as very curious and creative. She is a representation of the modern child. The modern child is curious, inquisitive and always willing to find out, and try new things. We could see from the book how curious Kate was in solving the mystery behind the Robot.
Kate built little toy robots from garages, and toy box given to her by her father. She assemble metal pieces together and build amazing robots and iron man. In addition to that, we saw how she dismantled JACK, the MAXI AI to make him work again, and after much trial, she got him to work.
The Invasion tells us, that children and young adults should be given an opportunity to maximize their talent and master their craft.
The other things that must be pointed out here is the Crock family. The Crock family from the story, helps each other. We see how Kate Crock was fully supported by her Parents and friend in growing her craft. We see how Dr. Croak the scientist, built a robot for her. We see how the entire family came together to build Lucy the near-human robot.
The book passes a message that, the support of family is important in a child’s life and when a family works together as a team, they will achieve tremendous growth. Little wonder, the Crock family is a multimillion dollar family.
Towards, the end of the story, a rather dramatic event happened, Robot (like Aliens) invaded earth, in a bid to conquer the planet. Could that be the dire climax of technological disruption? Would robots someday invade man? Although the story ended with a perfect synergy between man and robots, one is tempted to ask, perhaps Harriet could be a prophetess sent from the future to speak to us through her book.
While I highly recommended, THE INVASION as an amazing Sci-Fi story, I have my reservations. The story would have been more captivating and relatable, if it was written based on an African setting. This African setting could be depicted in the names of the characters and names of places. Africa is the continent of the future, particularly Nigeria which housed the highest tech companies and start-ups in the continent. A short story set in Africa, would be a perfect representation of the continent’s future.
Quite amazing is the narrative technique employed by the author. The first person narrative technique. The narrative technique made the story more human and relatable, as it was narrated by a child, in the sense and perception of a child. This would not have been the case, if it was narrated using the third person technique. That would have made the story less relatable and emotionless. We see Kate Crock as an innocent, yet intelligent child, obsessed with metal, science and design. We could feel her, understand her and follow her thought process as she grew, and became the heroin who saved the world from ‘The Invasion’.
Kate Crock and the Robot is a metaphorical representation of an idea, a concept. The idea of futurism. Though, currently, there are human-like robots, the future will witness more near-human robots like Lucy. Kate Crock and Lucy are the metaphor of the tomorrow’s world, and we should be ready to embrace them. In the book, Kate was able to face the invasion, because she was ready before hand. Humans should likewise be ready before hand.
The invasion of the future may not be physical, like in the movies, the invasion would be human induced. It shall be as a result of more advanced creations of the human mind, brought into reality by science and technology.
In addition to the first person narrative technique employed by Harriet, she employed other literary technique, such as metaphor, and imagery. I am certain Harriet shall become a leading African Sci-Fi and futurist writer the continent has ever seen. It is only but time.

Find the book on;
https://publish.okadabooks.com/search?query=The%20INVASION

The Invasion https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B7XGFQFF?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_BH3E5H6EQQV08W3WRZ00

https://books.apple.com/gb/book/the-invasion/id6443229341