BOOK REVIEW: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Note: this book was read and reviewed by me in January of 2024 on a previous site that no longer exists.

I've always found sci-fi a little intimidating. Nonetheless, I’m determined to read outside of my comfort zone, so here I am. 

I chose Lagoon for three reasons.

First, the cover is stunning.

Second, I’m already familiar with Nnedi Okorafor. Well, everybody is familiar with Nnedi Okorafor. She’s a well-known author of African speculative fiction and an all-around fascinating person.

Third, the premise is compelling. An alien invasion set against the backdrop of Lagos. I was intrigued.

Lagoon turned out to be a folklore-infused epic, fantastical, and afro-futuristic story. It's unlike anything I've ever read. It took a long time to read, and even longer to find the right words to describe. 

I'm still not sure what to make of it, and it shows in the length of this review.

But if you’ve read the book, you'll understand. It’s exactly the kind of story that needs to be discussed in this many words.

When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous and legendary city, three people wandering along Bar Beach (Adaora, the marine biologist- Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa- Agu, the troubled soldier) find themselves running a race against time to save the country they love and the world itself… from itself.

Told from multiple points of view and crisscrossing narratives, combining everything from superhero comics to Nigerian mythology to tie together a story about a city consuming itself.

A Unique Opening

The story starts with a prologue from the viewpoint of a swordfish. Yes, a swordfish. 

Through her eyes, we see something strange in the water, a blob-like thing that "shifts from blue to green to clear to purple-pink to glowing gold". This glowing thing draws all the sea creatures to it. But the swordfish doesn’t move. Instead, she waits for the blob to come to her. Then, before her eyes, she begins to change. 

“Her swordlike spear is longer and so sharp at the tip that it sings. They made her eyes like the blackest stone, and she can see deep into the ocean and high into the sky. And when she wants to, she can make spikes of cartilage jut out along her spine as if she is some ancestral creature from the deepest ocean caves of old. The last thing she requests is to be three times her size and twice her weight. They make it so. Now she is no longer a great swordfish. She is a monster.”

What an opening. It was like I was sitting in a cinema, watching the story unfold on a large screen in front of me. I was immediately drawn in. 

The A’s

The first chapter introduces us to our first human characters. Adaora, Agu, and Anthony. The As. If you think it sounds like the name of a superhero team, well, you just wait. 

When we first meet them, they are all heading separately toward Bar Beach's ocean, each with their own reasons for being there.

“Bar beach was where she knew her destiny waited for her.”

For Adaora, a marine biologist, Bar Beach is as close as a friend. It has witnessed every significant event in her life, from receiving her degree in marine biology to her father’s sudden death. It’s only right that it also sees her swollen cheek after her husband of ten years, Chris, slaps her. 

Agu is in even worse shape, sporting a bloody nose and his own swollen face. He is a soldier who was beaten up by his superiors for daring to stop them from assaulting a young drunk woman.

On the other hand, the famous Ghanaian rapper, Anthony aka ‘Anthony dey Craze’ only just managed to slip from his post-concert after-party for a quiet stroll. The last thing he wants is to meet other people, especially people that might recognize him.

Even when it becomes obvious that their paths will cross, they keep on walking straight ahead.

They barely meet and exchange words before a loud blast throws them to the ground, and a wave drags them towards the ocean. 

Before the water swallows up our three main characters, two witnesses to the event—a gloomy prostitute and a mute beggar—also see a dark-skinned woman emerge from the ocean. 

In the nick of time though, Anthony has a chance to save a bat from certain death (I’m not at all sure why this is important, other than the fact that the bat gets his own chapter later in the book). 

An Overwhelming Cast of Characters

As you can probably already tell, the story is crazy. Not only do the As have their own chapters, but so do the mute boy and the gloomy prostitute. So do Adaora’s husband, Chris, Adaora’s housekeeper, Philomena, and Philo’s boyfriend, Moziz. So do random passersby on the road and random occupants in a cyber cafe. So do the swordfish and the bat and a random spider on a wide road.

Nnedi Okorafor states in the afterword that she was inspired to write this book after seeing District 9. I’ve never seen the movie, but from what I understand, it features some heavily stereotyped Nigerian characters.

In response, it is clear that Okorafor intended to depict multiple aspects of Lagos. However, having spent little time in Nigeria herself, she could only populate her book with stereotypes—a broad range of stereotypes, but stereotypes, nonetheless.

There is the greedy, woman-hating Christian minister; the superstitious wife-beating religious husband; and the 419 scammers in cybercafes orchestrating love scams to unsuspecting foreign women—stereotypes that are not only overused but also perpetuate the constant profiling of Nigerians as bad people.

Dear foreigners, please know that not all of us are bigots, religious extremists, wife-beaters, or scammers. Most of us are just normal.

Characters That Lack Depth

Even the main characters are little more than caricatures to advance the plot. They lack depth and personality. They have no personal motivations that tie them to the story. They don’t even react appropriately to the plot events.

For example, when they meet the alien ambassador, they are calm. When the alien says she can shapeshift and then demonstrates it, there is no surprise or fear. Just acceptance. In a country where superstition prevails even in the presence of the best education, it’s just not realistic.

Because we know nothing about them beyond their names (which all conveniently start with the letter A) and their roles, they can essentially be swapped for anyone else without changing the plot. 

There’s also a comical lack of chemistry in their team. They don’t spend any time together before somehow deciding that they are the chosen ones, fated together by destiny to save the world. Yet they’re soon risking their lives for each other. 

On page 117, Adaora and Agu even share a kiss, after less than a day of acquaintance and less than thirty minutes of actual conversation. 

I call it comical because, for my own sanity, I have to believe that Okorafor isn't genuinely trying to pass off this forced romance as realistic relationship-building. That would be ridiculous. Or maybe we’re supposed to believe it because everything else is so absurd.

My favorite characters are the non-human ones because I took them for what they are, a spectacle. I even have a soft spot for a certain short-lived tarantula.

However, one non-human character receives even less development than the humans. The aliens.

In a story set into motion because of them, they receive zero attention. Beyond being a catalyst for the story, who are they? Where are they from? Why do they come to earth? Why Lagos? Why the ocean? Who the heck even knows? Obviously not me, despite reading all 300+ pages.

A Simple Plot Caught In A Tangled Web of Side Stories

"There were aliens in the ocean, and they were going to come out soon."

Nnedi Okorafor divides her Lagos-centered first-contact alien invasion story into three parts.

Despite the fascinating swordfish introduction, Act 1 quickly becomes a chore. 

The main plot is pretty simple. After meeting the alien ambassador, quickly dubbed Ayodele after Adaora’s late childhood friend—another yet unexplained detail—the As get embroiled in a plot to bring Ayodele in contact with the President of Nigeria. 

But in the midst of this, there are a million other side stories. An LGBTQ group seeks to use the alien invasion as a chance for liberation. A Christian Minister attempts to convert the aliens for public recognition and profit. Adaora’s house girl, Philomena, and her boyfriend, Moziz, try to kidnap the aliens at gunpoint and hold them for ransom. 

At this point, the temptation to DNF was strong, but I thought to myself “this is just how sci-fi works” and kept trudging through. 

Act 2 begins from the perspective of a tarantula crossing the wide road of the Lagos-Benin expressway, just before he meets his end beneath a car's wheel.

“The tarantula scrambles faster, certain that he will make it across. Certain of his extraordinary speed. Crunch.”

We soon learn that the spider-murdering car belongs to Adaora as she returns home after their initial attempt to meet with the president fails.

As Lagos descends into chaos, the viewpoint switches to that of the mute boy, then the prostitute---whose name we now know is Fisayo--- and then to a slew of irrelevant people.

People get turned into plantain trees, mist, or simply just disappear. A masquerade invades a local cyber cafe before disappearing into a computer screen. At some point, Adaora’s husband, while taking their children away from harm's way, encounters a road monster. 

There are chapters in the viewpoints of bats and spiders and in the voice of Udide, the story-weaver who has been narrating the story the entire time.

“I am the spider. I see sound. I feel taste. I hear touch. I spin the story. This is the story I’ve spun. I am Udide Okwanka.”

And all along, the actual plot barely moves along. The As are still trying to meet the President, this time at the airport when he arrives back from Saudi Arabia.

Even while all the non-essential characters are taking up space in the story, I kept going, partly because I had already invested too much time but also because I was sure that all the threads would eventually come together. 

They didn’t. They didn’t come together at all.

Act 3 begins with a prologue from the perspective of a bat, the bat, the one that Anthony saves in the first chapter.

While this is a fun callback, it’s completely irrelevant, just like 80% of the story. Until the end, the story remains a jumbled mess of ideas that sometimes lead into one another and sometimes lead nowhere at all. 

Some storylines—such as those involving the LGBT group, Philomena and Moziz, and James the crossdresser—are entirely forgotten. These threads completely fizzle out and are never brought up again. So why then does the author devote so much time to them?

And then some plot lines emerge right in the middle of the book. From nowhere, the As have superpowers. Yep! It really is some superhero-type shit.

Except for the sake of a twist, why do the As even need superpowers? How do they get the superpowers? Are they related to the aliens? Do others have superpowers as well? 

Naturally, these questions are never answered. And as this is a stand-alone book, they probably never will.

In the words of Udide, the storyweaver, 

“I know their stories as I know all stories. Do you want to know how their stories end? Do you want to know what happens to Chris? Does he get back together with his wife? Or will Adaora stay with Agu? What of Kola and Fred? What is Anthony’s place in the new world? Yes, you want to know. We all want to know things. But I feel the press of other stories.”

To be honest, I don't even want to know the answers. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters, so I don’t care what happens to them.

Okorafor clearly had fun writing this book. She crafted a story with a cinematic feel, cutting swiftly between locations and people. As a result, the book reads like one of those big-budget action movies. Big booms. Monsters. Many characters. Wacky plotlines. There’s even a post-credit scene.

But, just like a movie, it keeps the audience on the outside, watching but not exactly immersed.

The Pacing was off

“He’d learned the hard way that he could never trust people during such times. Anyone could get swept in to the mob’s violent mentality at any moment.”

Even though a lot—a lot—was happening, the story crawled. It moved so slowly that it was a struggle not to DNF it at 30%, then again at 50% and 90%. Honestly, if not for this review, I might never have finished it.

I think the problem is that while many of the chapters give a broad view of the situation, not many of them push the actual plot forward. A movie's camera can pan to many POVs because the view is visually stimulating and lasts only a few seconds. But what might look like a few seconds in a movie, reads like several minutes in a book. 

It feels like the reader is suspended in the same place for long periods, just barely crawling forward. It made for a very hard book to finish. 

The Writing

A few months ago, I tried reading Okorafor’s ‘Who Fears Death’ but eventually gave up at 40%. Now, here's another Okorafor novel that I struggled to finish. 

While I’m in awe of her for what she is—an obviously talented, infinitely imaginative writer—I think that she’s just not the writer for me.

Don’t get me wrong. There were moments of brilliance.

"The creature was every color of the rainbow, glowing deep and powerful in the night. And it made music. The creature's cloth quivered with the beat it sent into the ground. The sound was impossible, I swear. The sound of life, the beginning.”

Then there were some less-than-brilliant moments. She used terms like “high-definition wide-screen television” instead of just television, and “portable chargeable glowing vibrating chirping tweeting communicating connected devices” instead of just phones.

“Because so many people in Lagos had portable chargeable glowing vibrating chirping tweeting communicating connected devices, practically everything was recorded and posted online in some way, somehow. Quickly. The modern human world is connected like a spider’s web.”

I understand that it's a stylistic choice, but overall, I found it awkward and clunky. The writing just didn’t flow.

A large part of the problem was the dialogue. This book has some of the worst dialogue I've ever read in my entire life, and I shudder at the thought of foreigners thinking that this is how Nigerians speak. 

In an attempt to capture the essence of Lagos, Okorafor has her characters use slang and pidgin English, but the slangs are overdone and not used properly. 

“Okay, o, ” Moziz said. “Well, if dem get flying ship, wetin again dem get wey we no sabi?” He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe we fit tell am to print original naira notes for us, o. Yes na, if she fit change herself, na him be say she fit do other things, too! Miracle! Heiyaaa! Na so na! Na so universe law be, o, no be mek de law.”

“You know the mythology behind this place, sha?” 

Using ‘o’ at the end of a word and ‘sha’ at the end of a sentence doesn’t make the characters sound Nigerian. Instead, it was just weird and gave me a headache.

It would have been better if the author simply had everyone speak in standard English rather than attempting something she was clearly unfamiliar with.

Food for thought

This book left me with many things to think about.

“Human beings have a hard time relating to that which does not resemble them. It’s your greatest flaw.”

First, it’s worth noting that while the aliens come peacefully, the chaos is caused mainly by people---those who easily turn against one another when faced with a threat and others who don't hesitate to exploit the resulting confusion. It highlights humanity's sometimes stark brutality.

There is also a clear opposition to man-made pollution. After arriving in the ocean, the aliens make it clean, apparently so clean that it becomes toxic to humans. I suppose this is a metaphor for how we humans have become so used to polluted waters that we start to find clean water poisonous.

On the other hand, the aliens also transform the sea creatures into monsters, and I’m not sure what the point of that is. Then there’s the question of why the aliens would even care about sea life at all. 

There are also strong anti-Christian vibes, considering all the Christians are portrayed as superstitious, sexist, brainless bigots. Classy.

There are other vague messages centered around social media, sexism, racism, prostitution, homophobia, disability, corruption, and much more, but there were so shallowly touched that I couldn’t grasp them properly.

Overall, what I felt most was a strong affection for Lagos. Even though Okorafor did not accurately represent Lagos, her love for the city shone across the pages.

"Lagos has fed me. Fast life, fast death. High life, low life. Skyscrapers, shanty towns. Flies, mosquitoes. The roads rumble as paths to the future, always hungry for blood"

Final Thoughts

It's way too ambitious

There are many things I liked about this story.

It was such a treat to read about Lagos, my Lagos, at the center of an alien invasion. And how clever is it to integrate local lore like Mami Water, Ijele, and Anansi into what would have been a classic first-contact story? 

As a movie, I think this story would be incredible as is, and I hope that something similar gets produced for the big screen. 

But, as a group of African American college students seeing the footage from Lagos, state in the post-credit scene, the chances of that happening are slimmer than the chances of an actual alien invasion.

"You think they gon' spend they money to put somethin' together that looks this real and actually allow black folks to star in it? Real Africans? And then set it in Africa?" He guffawed with glee and shook his head. "Naw, man, not gonna happen. This shit real. That's the more likely scenario."

Thus, we’ll have to make do with the book.

But, as a book, or at least this book, the story just doesn’t work. It tries to be too many things at once and thus, is nothing at all. There are too many story threads that lead nowhere and eventually fall apart completely.

If the story were a little simpler, if it kept a narrower focus on our three main characters, developing their storylines, and adding depth to their personalities, this would be gold.

Instead, it grows beyond them to become this monstrosity that transcends cohesion.

So, as much as it saddens me, I'm giving this 2 out of 5 stars.

Who Is It For?

I don't know a single person that I could recommend this book to.