Lagoon

By: Nnedi Okorafor

Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh, Ben Onwukwe

Three strangers, each isolated by his or her own problems: Adaora, the marine biologist. Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa. Agu, the troubled soldier. Wandering Bar Beach in Lagos, Nigeria's legendary mega-city, they're more alone than they've ever been before. But when something like a meteorite plunges into the ocean and a tidal wave overcomes them, these three people will find themselves bound together in ways they could never imagine.

Together with Ayodele, a visitor from beyond the stars, they must race through Lagos and against time itself in order to save the city, the world...and themselves.

'There was no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek. And there was no pain. It was like being thrown into the stars.'

©2014 Nnedi Okorafor (P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton

Critic reviews

Praise for Who Fears Death:

"A fantastical, magical blend of grand storytelling" (Publishers Weekly)
"Beautifully written, this is dystopian fantasy at its very best" (Library Journal Review)
"Both wondrously magical and terribly realistic." (Washington Post)

Good story but many POV switches

Story was interesting and the narrators are talented, but I think the combination of multiple perspective shifts and the occasional use of Nigerian pidgin English made it easy to lose interest and hard to get pulled back into the narrative. The pace is also relatively slow for a story about aliens coming to Earth! That said, I'm glad I finished it and will definitely pick up more of Nnedi Okorafor.

Different than the Norm - Is good

Different than the normal sci-fi. An inventive, amazing and wonderfully engaging story. I love how the author uses elements of poetry and prose, onomatopoeia and dynamic dialogue to bring this amazing tale to life!

Salaam

This Author is amazingly fresh, she puts out nothing but quality work! Dope! Nuff said!

Probably the best book of this genre

Amazing storytelling, superb narration. Very good first contact story. I don't want to give anything away, just read it!

Lagos, where nothing works and everything happens

Lagoon By Nnedi Okorafor is the World Fantasy Award winning author’s first novel for adults since 2010′s Who Fears Death. Narrated By Ben Onwukwe (known for his role in London’s Burning) and Adjoa Andoh (known for her roles in Dr. Who and EastEnders) for Hodder & Stoughton, the audiobook is really well done. Onwukwe handles most of the mainline narration, with Andoh providing the introduction and filling in for a few vignettes as well as providing all of the female voices “inline” with Onwukwe’s reading. Both narrators display quite a range, from multiple “American” accents to diverse African (Nigeria, Ghana, pidgin English) to British ex-pats and more; from simple dialogue to guttural screams, both actors give fantastic performances. At first, the “inline” insertions are a bit jarring, but as the audiobook progresses it becomes more natural and seamless to the ear. Inspired by “Wizard of the Crow, Under the Dome (the novel), Nollywood movies, and District 9″, Lagoon is a story of first alien contact, Lagos, Nigeria, and (principle among the protagonists) Adaora, a marine biologist. Okorafor’s aliens are different — upon high-magnification examination, Adaora discovers that they are not composed of cellular material at all, but rather billions of tiny metallic crystals — who can shapeshift, read thoughts, and are quite serious when they say that they bring “change” — a keyword refrain that I read as an homage to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Written with a cinematic sensibility, along with the primary thrust of the story (Adaora, rapper Anthony, and soldier Agu trying desperately amidst the chaos of rioting Lagos to bring alien ambassador Ayodele together with the popular but ineffective Nigerian president) there are many, many sub-plots afoot, from a “born-again” church’s bishop hoping to use Ayodele, to small-time 419 scammers preparing to upgrade to kidnapping, to (as is perhaps a defining characteristic of Okorafor’s work to date) the intersection of science fiction and mythology: ghosts, gods, trees, animals, the ocean itself. Highly recommended.

ehhh okay

I thought I was a neat idea, the story is pretty interesting. It was just too diluted by the end, I was struggling to want to finish. I love accented narrators and these guys were good except I think it was called pigeon English, those parts I just really couldn't understand what they were saying like at all but it was just a chapter here or there of that. Another thing that made it hard for me, at least at the beginning, was the switching between male and female voices, I just don't think that was a good idea. )= honestly I don't think I would reread this book

Great storyteller

Nnedi Okorafor is a great storyteller. She writes about exciting characters set in exotic environments. I loved the mix of science fiction and magical realism set in the big city Lagos. The mix of modern and tradition is a trait that the author handles perfectly. The narrator uses an nigerian accent that requires a little bit of extra consentration in the beginning, but adds to the ambiens like a good seasoning after a while.

What if the UFOs landed in Nigeria?

Things I liked: Setting an alien invasion in Lagos Nigeria, all the characters are Africans (with a couple of African-Americans thrown in), the way animals just accept the changes introduced by the aliens vs the humans rejecting the aliens. I really loved the use of language, particularly the passages in Pidgin English. Even though it was sometimes hard to understand, it really grounded the book and made the characters feel very real. I also liked the lyrical way the author wrote in the voices of the animals as in the following two passages (the first is from the point of view of a bat, the second is a spider). Also, I have to say, this book had some of the best cover art ever.

“She flies higher than she’s ever flown before, maybe she is trying to leave the earth. She isn’t sure, she isn’t thinking about it. She’s far in her mind, deep in her own thoughts, the air on her wings feels amazing, she is swimming, rolling through the air as if it’s water. She lifts her head as she flies and lets out a series of loud chirps. And that’s when she sees it. The largest bat ever. Flying faster than any hawk or eagle or owl, roaring like some sort of monster. She doesn’t know the human word ‘dragon’ otherwise she would call it that. There is no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek, and no pain. It is like being thrown into the stars.”

“I am the unseen. For centuries I have been here, beneath this great city, this metropolis. I know your language. I know all languages. . . . My cave is broad and cool. The sun cannot send its heat down here. The damp soil is rich and fragrant. I turn softly on my back and place my eight legs to the cave ceiling. Then, I listen. I am the spider. I see sound. I feel taste. I hear touch. I spin this story. This is the story I’ve spun.”

I was a bit confused when several new characters were introduced quite late in the book and they didn’t seem at all integral to the plot. Also I sometimes found it hard to understand what was motivating some of the characters. I wish the animals’ point-of-view had come into the book more earlier, more frequently, and with a bit more explanation; I think that would have given the book more context.

[I listened to this as an audio book performed by Adjoa Andoh and Ben Onwukwe. They did a fantastic job! The accents they used made it easy to differentiate between the different characters, as did the fact that the male narrator read the male lines and the female narrator read the female lines]

Had high hopes

Good concept but the story was choppy, I couldn't connect with the characters. They were too 2 dimensional, no depth.

Super Creative Story!

There was definitely some strong language and suggestive content in the novel that I personallycould have done without (hence the 4 stars) but the story itself is amazing and the performance for the audible version was fantastic.