Lagoon in Beyond Reality

Jul 16, 2014 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, africa

I enjoyed a number of things about this first contact novel. Multiple perspectives don't always work for me, but here they added to the feeling that the city of Lagos is the main character. The overlapping structure, in which we see the same event from multiple viewpoints, was very effective. I loved being in the perspective of a swordfish, a bat, a road, a spider-storyteller. The monsters are great. I liked that Okorafor let characters speak pidgin English when that was accurate to the characte ...more

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Aug 20, 2017 Wealhtheow rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy, queer-characters, sci-fi, urban-fantasy, didn-t_finish, pocmaincharacters

Aliens arrive in Nigeria, first changing the sea creatures they encounter, then interacting with humans. Their chosen ambassadors are a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, who eventually decide to help one of the aliens reach the Nigerian president. Unfortunately, the presence of aliens has catalyzed anarchy in the streets, as every person is out for themselves or their chosen cause.

That's as much as I know, because 60% into the book, that's all that happened. Innumerable characters are Aliens arrive in Nigeria, first changing the sea creatures they encounter, then interacting with humans. Their chosen ambassadors are a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, who eventually decide to help one of the aliens reach the Nigerian president. Unfortunately, the presence of aliens has catalyzed anarchy in the streets, as every person is out for themselves or their chosen cause.

That's as much as I know, because 60% into the book, that's all that happened. Innumerable characters are introduced, given a couple sentences that sum them up entirely, have a scene or two, and then vanish. Or if they do come back, they just do the exact same things as the last time we saw them on page. The prostitute-turned-alien-hater is described as having damaged hair because of all the wigs she wears, she thinks about all the men she distatefully had sex with, and then she rants about aliens. Over and over. The Area Boys egg each other on while in a car. A hundred times. The marine biologist thinks about how her husband used to be different before he was born again. A hundred times. And yet despite all this repetition and jumping from one character and situation to the next, I actually learned very little about Lagos, the overall plot, or any individual character. Characters will do something completely unexpected and inconsistent with all previous actions, and then the narrative will suddenly give you three pages of backstory or a flashback that explains that this character has always had magical powers (but where these magical powers come from is never explained), or once accidentally hurt another boy and so swore never to do so again, or whatever. Random stuff happens with no lead in or follow through. Huge events happen and then aren't referred to again and don't change anything. It made me feel like I couldn't trust the book, because it would just make things happen and then come up with explanations for why it happened afterward, like the story was written very quickly and without editing. As of 60% into the story, there was still not actual point or driving force about anything, and I didn't believe in or care about any of the characters, so I gave up. The only section I liked was the prologue, told from the perspective of a fish that the aliens make powerful and capable of destroying oil refineries. ...more

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Jul 16, 2015 MadProfessah rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015-read

I'm glad that I finally read a book by Nnedi Okrafor and I guess Lagoon is a good place to start. I bought it on sale at Amazon for $2.99 and it was well worth this price.

Overall, the book was not really my cup of tea. I appreciated the setting in Lagos, Nigeria and the choice of making an African female marine biologist with a PhD the main character. I was somewhat annoyed by the frequency of words that are unfamiliar (wahala, chale, and many many more) and I think there should have been a tec ...more

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Dec 01, 2017 Maggie K rated it liked it

Shelves: wwe-challenge-2017

This was a very interesting and fast-paced read about an alien invasion, and some of the people affected by the first contact. Other than that, there wasn't much of a story, leading me to imagine this is just a book about peoples reaction to an alien visitation, almost a political statement on how something like this would probably be (mis)handled.....
The writing was excellent, making it very enjoyable. ...more

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Jul 23, 2020 Christine H rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Such a strong start, and such a compelling idea! Aliens come to Lagos for first contact. As Okorafor says, other places might have had an organized, government-led response. But in Lagos, the aliens can reach out to regular people, mix among them, and both wonder and chaos ensue.

But then, this devolved into just more and more chaos. The closest thing to a plot is that the main characters think the alien ambassador needs to talk to the president of Nigeria. This involves uploading YouTube videos ...more

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