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Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon
Feb. 1st, 2021 05:12 pm Adaora is a marine biologist whose husband has suddenly become paranoid and controlling after joining a predatory church. Agu is a soldier who fears for his family's safety after trying to stop his commanding officer from raping somebody. Anthony is a famous Ghanaian rapper haunted by strange visions while performing on stage. The three of them are all already feeling a little lost when they converge on the same stretch of beach in Lagos, Nigeria, only to be abducted by aliens hiding in a giant spaceship under the sea... and when they're returned, it's with a fourth party: an alien visitor with scarily impressive powers, such as the ability to shapeshift into any form, rearrange matter arbitrarily on a whim, and transform the sea life of the surrounding waters into monsters. An alien who announces that her people, who are present in large numbers under the water, simply want to settle permanently in Nigeria--but who won't hesitate to retaliate with extreme violence if someone tries to hurt her.
The revelation throws the city of Lagos into chaos. Everyone who isn't in understandable terror seems to be trying to work some kind of angle. Every social and class division in the city gets thrown into sharp relief. And to complicate matters, the aliens aren't the only supernormal force at work. The three decide the only way this has any hope of ending well is if they take their new friend to their leader, which is easier said than done under the conditions, and they'll end up calling on abilities they never entirely knew they had.
I'm really starting to like Nnedi Okorafor's writing a lot. Her novel Lagoon is a kaleidoscopic, multi-POV description of a city in crisis that reminds me a bit of John Brunner's big ambitious social-problem novels from the 60s/70s, only with more touches that Western reviewers might call magic-realist, and with the same headlong, unpredictable quality as the Binti stories. But this one is set not in a strange far future, but in more or less present-day Nigeria (there are apparently some touches of modest futurism in the set-up, but I'm unfamiliar enough with Lagos that I didn't notice them). Only Okorafor is also unconcerned with maintaining any kind of rationalist fantasy/SF distinction, and it makes this book stronger.
Lots of stuff that is fairly disturbing happens in Lagoon, but Okorafor doesn't feel obliged to give it a downer ending.
The revelation throws the city of Lagos into chaos. Everyone who isn't in understandable terror seems to be trying to work some kind of angle. Every social and class division in the city gets thrown into sharp relief. And to complicate matters, the aliens aren't the only supernormal force at work. The three decide the only way this has any hope of ending well is if they take their new friend to their leader, which is easier said than done under the conditions, and they'll end up calling on abilities they never entirely knew they had.
I'm really starting to like Nnedi Okorafor's writing a lot. Her novel Lagoon is a kaleidoscopic, multi-POV description of a city in crisis that reminds me a bit of John Brunner's big ambitious social-problem novels from the 60s/70s, only with more touches that Western reviewers might call magic-realist, and with the same headlong, unpredictable quality as the Binti stories. But this one is set not in a strange far future, but in more or less present-day Nigeria (there are apparently some touches of modest futurism in the set-up, but I'm unfamiliar enough with Lagos that I didn't notice them). Only Okorafor is also unconcerned with maintaining any kind of rationalist fantasy/SF distinction, and it makes this book stronger.
Lots of stuff that is fairly disturbing happens in Lagoon, but Okorafor doesn't feel obliged to give it a downer ending.