Title Lagoon Author Nnedi Okorafor Cover Art --- Publisher Saga Press - 2016 First Printing Hodder & Stoughton - 2014 Category Science Fiction Main Characters Adaora, Agu, Anthony, Ayodele Main Elements Aliens Website ---

In Lagos, three total strangers are drawn to Bar Beach. A marine biologist, a rapper famous throughout Africa, and a troubled soldier are brought together when an alien ship lands in the ocean, causing a tidal wave that will transform them - and change the world.

But they were not the only witnesses. When word gets out on the Internet that aliens may have landed in the waters outside the world's fifth most populous city Lagos begins to erupt. Soon the military, religius leaders, thieves, and crackpots are trying to control the message on YouTube and on the streets. Meanwhile, Earth's superpowers are considering a preemptive nuclear launch to eradicate the intruders. All that stands between seventeen million residents and anarchy and death are an alien ambassador and three altered humans who are now running a gauntlet of horrors within the city in order to save it.

Lagoon is a thriller of unparalleled suspense that will force the reader to wonder: When aliens land, what will I do?

Trying to decide how to put my thoughts together here, since I have a lot of them. Maybe I can kind of try to start with what I thought this book was about, a first encounter with an alien species. And it is, there is most definitely aliens that land on our world, that want to live with us, maybe guide us, definitely change us. But while this is really core to the story, its almost more just the trigger for the all the rest. Thus it is a bit of a stretch to call it science fiction, especially as Okorafor doesn't really try to explain the science of it all. And that's alright.

So what is it? Maybe fantasy? Our three protagonists discover they each have powers...except they aren't new, introduced by the aliens, they were always this way. Super strength, force fields, sonic booms. And then of course the part that really threw me but at the same gave me pleasure, the introduction of the gods and legends and myths. Of the great spider weaving the tale together, of the bone collector god that needs to be appeased by the aliens. It's weird, but it works.

It works because its really about the people, about Africa and Nigeria in particular. It's about how they in particular would react if aliens landed there, and about the animals and spirit of the land itself. I read this book to fill a reading BINGO that required the setting to be in Africa and this was about as perfect as it comes. Not only was it set in Africa, it was about its culture, its people's, its languages (you'll need to struggle a little through the pidgin-English but it works), about their politics, economy, the environment, their rich and their poor, their religions and their superstitions.

I loved the story for all that.

But...no fault of the book, but I'm not a huge fan of the post-apocalyptic people doing batshit crazy tale. I mean of course, aliens land and the first things the humans do is rape, steal, vandalize, and beat the crap out of each other. It's depressing to read about. The religious fanatics running around labelling people as witches, someone ends up dying when an LGBTQ character is outed, and the highway just decides to eat everyone. Even the ocean is filled with angry monsters pissed at the humans that messed up their waters, because the aliens aren't here just to live with us, they view all living things as something to communicate with, to learn from, and to share their gifts with. The aliens don't mean us harm (but oh the things they can do to us when we harm them, which, of course, we do, 'cause we're dumb that way), but the changes they bring will definitely have an effect, not just on our society but likely our evolution.

In fact the intro is from the point of view of a swordfish, it definitely set the vibe for the rest of the book. And make sure you keep reading till the end, I know you might want to skip the glossary, or maybe the author's thank you page, but there's more right to the very last page (ok not the last, last page, that was an add for The Dandelion Dynasty...which well you might want to read that too, that was another amazing series I highly recommend)