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Lagoon (2014)

by Nnedi Okorafor(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1444762753 (ISBN13: 9781444762754)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Hodder & Stoughton

review 1: Lagoon is an original take on the whole Aliens visiting Earth science-fiction extravaganza, and largely it succeeds by adding something new and fresh. Even the viewpoint alternates from a human perspective, to spiders and a swordfish, which manages to expand the world and the scope of the novel, leaving our imaginations to fill in the world of Lagos and its people and all the spaces in-between. In a sense, Okorafor, manages to make us believe that what is happening in the story isn't just happening to a few people, its affecting everyone, the whole city, even down to the animals and sea creatures. The aliens are also not just malevolent creatures wishing to do harm, in a sense its the people of Lagos that do the most harm, and we're kept guessing whether the visitors have ... morearrived to do evil or good, or perhaps a little of both. I won't go any further into the story, but I enjoyed this novel very much. The fact that it is set in Nigeria also added something different to the feel and flavour of the story. I highly recommend if you like sci-fi and are looking for something a little different.
review 2: Aliens invade the Gulf of Guinea, to the south of Lagos, Nigeria, and the city responds. That's the nutshell description of this light science fiction novel about "first contact" made exotic to most of us by virtue of its setting, which is a continent away from New York, Tokyo and the other non-African cities that aliens choose to inhabit or destroy in most science fiction novels. And as a story about Lagos the book is a success. The chapters are short and the narrative points of view many, and sometimes a character narrates for only one chapter, creating a pleasing tapestry effect. In one particularly wonderful section, the narrator is a spider trying to cross a highway. In other, an orphan boy. A scam artist. A cross-dresser. A bat that's sprouted an extra eye. We get a glimpse of Nigeria's languages, its two main religions (Christianity and Islam), and its many urban problems and delights. Lagos becomes a city of simmering energy. But I wish the novel had either diluted its viewpoints even more or picked different characters to follow, because the ones we end up sticking with are kind of a bore compared to where they live. The city overwhelms them. I understand they serve the story, but I kept wishing they'd disappear, eaten perhaps by a stretch of highway that consumes people (!), or fade away like the novel's villainous Christian preacher (the characterizations follow very "progressive" tendencies). That said, the last quarter of the book, which does focus on the main characters, is wonderful, imaginative, vividly described and at times beautiful—and then the novel ends! They say that you should leave them wanting more, but I almost would have preferred the story to start where it ended and leave the beginning to my imagination. Then again, Lagoon is firmly a novel about Lagos and it ends just as the action begins to trickle beyond the city's borders, so the author's decision makes sense. It's urban-scale science fiction. I loved the setting, enjoyed the fantasy and wished I'd gotten both with a different set of characters, i.e. more spiders and bats. less

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