The North American and European powers responsible for the devastation have escaped to colonies in space and exploited the nations left on Earth for their scarce remaining resources.
In the novel, characters Ify and Onyii navigate a Nigeria torn apart by a resurgent Nigerian Civil War.
[1][2][3][4][5] In a post-apocalyptic 2172, Nigeria is in the midst of a decades-long civil war between the national government and Biafran separatists, sparked by ethnic tensions and conflict over the powerful mineral Chukwu.
Many of the War Girls are killed in the fighting, but Onyii is spared by Daurama, Daren's sister, and manages to escape with comrades Chinelo, Kesandu, and Obioma.
Meanwhile, the War Girls are taken in by the Biafran military, and Onyii decides to fight for them in order to avenge Ify, whom she presumes dead.
Four years later, Ify is a student in Abuja, while Onyii fights for the Biafran military as a mech pilot alongside Chinelo, Kesandu, and Obioma.
They send the War Girls and their abds to infiltrate a Nigerian oil derrick where the shipments of mechs from the Colonies are being stored.
Nine months later, Onyii and Chinelo are in the process of adjusting to peacetime life in the Biafran capital of Enugu, and begin to fall in love.
Ify continues to hunt down Onyii, and meets up with Dr. Xifeng, who has come to Nigeria from China on a humanitarian mission to document the war.
The girls take refuge with Xifeng, who helps Onyii smuggle Ify onto a Gabonese spaceship to the Colonies.
An ethnically Nigerian scientific genius who is saved from being killed and raised by Onyii in the war girls' camp.
Xifeng: Chinese humanitarian who came to Nigeria to document the civil war in hopes of gaining aid from other nations.
The novel conveys the dangers of nuclear warfare and climate change, as well as how Western powers may avoid culpability for rendering Earth uninhabitable.
Onyebuchi also explores the consequences of war when he renders a refugee crisis in the wake of a ceasefire and portrays caravans of displaced people seeking safety and reunion with their loved ones.
Half the planet has been rendered uninhabitable due to radiation, and the global elite are seen to continue their exploitation of natural resources, especially the sacred mineral Chukwu in Biafra.
The novel comments on the unequal and disproportionate impact of climate change by showing that wealthy nations have migrated to space, where they have begun the process of colonization anew.
Western imperial powers are seen to be responsible for environmental destruction but, under the auspices of the Commonwealth Countries, they have also managed to escape to space.
Allows one to see anything in the camp's network, can hack others Augments - Technologically enhanced prosthetics, used to repair damage from war or radiation.
Enyemaka - A robot/android that protected Onyii, made out of spare technology that the girls could find Eto-Eto - A clay doll capable of being infused with genetic material via nanobots.
In a review for The New York Times, writer Margaret Wappler praised the novel for its "invaluable insight into the devastation of war for the most vulnerable victims," but criticized its action scenes as unclear and some of the characters as "underdeveloped.
"[4] Writing for Africa Access Review, Toyin Falola, a professor of African Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, hailed the novel as an "ingeniously crafted… philosophical, exciting adventure" and praised its exploration of the "themes of identity" with respect to "race, ethnicity, and technology.