Lagoon - Nnedi Okorafor

After reading Seed to Harvest, I decided to search for more sci-fi by Black women, and Nnedi Okorafor came right to the top of the (google) list. My general impression after reading Lagoon is that Okorafor does not disappoint.

This story has a bit of everything - biology, witches, cartoonish monsters, terrifying monsters, aliens, and misguided humans. Astounding extraterrestrial life comes to the city of Lagos, Nigeria and havoc ensues. The reader is pulled into the experience of a variety of humans, aliens, and even Nigerian mythical creatures, in a carefully intertwined web of sub-stories. Though the book is not hard sci-fi, there are some well-researched biology references throughout. It's also not fantasy, though the actions of the extraterrestrials edge towards fantastic. Beyond recommending reading it, I'll comment on the two takeaways I enjoyed most:

1. Exposure to modern-day Nigeria. The country, and the city of Lagos, are not painted as some magically wonderful place, but are rather exposed as realistic, charming, dangerous, and wholly human, almost in a Slumdog Millionaire way. Large passages of the book have dialogue in Nigerian Pidgin English, which adds to the real feel, and is exciting because they are left as-is -- it's up to the reader to dive in and translate. Despite Lagoon throwing aliens into the mix, the actions of the characters are undeniably, hilariously, frustratingly human, in a way that makes you smell the sweat, exhaust fumes, and frying fish of the Nigerian coast.

2. Strong women. The book makes a point of having strong, even superhuman, women in the lead. These women are treated as people by the "good guys" and as objects by the "bad guys." This produces a constant, subtle erosion of the notion that women are lesser, not just by casting women as powerful, but (perhaps more importantly) by casting misogynistic men as inferior and detestable.

Beyond these key takeaways, Okorafor also makes a point of including LGBTQ+ characters -- not just L or G -- with distinct personalities and goals, and each with their own clear agency. It addresses the prejudice that still exists in Nigerian society in an empowering and optimistic way, by showing these characters as people first.

Altogether, this is a solid read. It has a bit of the pace of Armada or Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, but is actually woke. It also has a bit of the wackiness of Planet for Rent by Yoss, with dark humor as a natural consequence of superpowerful aliens coming to Earth. More than anything, read it for a deep dive into Nigeria.

Update, 9 Jan 2022: Embarrassingly enough, this post has been mistitled for years as "Lagos" instead of "Lagoon." I have finally fixed it! My apologies to the author.