A review by gengelcox
O2 Arena by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

medium-paced

2.5

The basic idea of this story is strong: in a future Nigeria, the unit of currency is oxygen, supplemented by air filtration masks and devices that clean the air. Since only the rich can afford oxygen, the poor all around are dying from the poor air they breathe. But there’s always one get-rich-quick scheme available, and in this case it’s a gladiator ring where two people fight it out until one of them dies, with the winner getting basically a lifetime supply of oxygen. The gladiator ring story has been done to death, but finds new life here by coupling it with climate change, and there’s a subplot that helps the ending from being too pat. That’s the story. The writing itself, and the manner of the writing, felt too exposition heavy for me, with the first person narrator dropping info-dump after info-dump rather than the reader being shown the world. But obviously, that didn’t bother other readers, as this story won the 2021 Nebula for novelette.