Invasion is the first book in the Invasion Series, a book about an alien invasion. Except that it’s more about a family affected by the invasion than about the invasion itself. I read this after enjoying the Tomorrow Gene Series by the same authors and at first I thought that it was one of the better written apocalyptic novels I’d read, until I realised that the great prose and depth of characterisation was at the expense of the kind of pacing readers of sci fi expect. It took a very long time for the characters to get where they were going. Still at the end of the book I was left wondering what would happen next so I read the next book, and the next and the next, until I realised that the four books could have, and probably should have, been condensed into two.
Although book one is a full length novel, if you’re getting book one, you really need to read book two because the story only just gets started in book one. And these two are worth reading if you’re not expecting a great deal to happen in a hurry, and if you’re not expecting anything outside of the usual dawn of the apocalypse style of novel. The only special thing it brings to the genre is the highly personal examination of family dynamics. The description refers to it as a relentless, page-turning tale of apocalyptic dawn. Relentless? Yes. Page turning? Only to the end of book two or maybe three. Somewhere in book four, you might realise that the story is wandering, that the authors seem to have lost the plot and that really the books need a good editor to cut them back considerably. So though the series seems to start well, I was ultimately disappointed and didn’t finish the series.
Four stars for books 1-3. Three stars for book 4.
Description from the blurb for book one:
The discovery of objects approaching from Jupiter orbit sets humanity on edge, sending cities into panic. Most is unknown, but thanks to the popular Astral space app, everyone knows the few facts the government has tried to hide:
The objects are enormous spheres numbering in the dozens, maybe hundreds. They are on an approach vector toward Earth … and they will arrive in six days.
Entrepreneur Meyer Dempsey is in New York, realizing the time has come to act on all the preparations he’s made without ever consciously knowing why. For years Meyer has been preoccupied by a dreamlike sense of coming peril and knows where he must take his family … if, that is, they can make it before society eats itself alive with fear.
Note on the series:
I also read the next three books in the series: Contact, Colonisation and Annihilation. However, the books became more and more long-winded and slow, so I gave up on the series with two left to go. I recommend books one and two, but I suggest you stop there and pass on the rest of the series.
