A deadly contagion from outer space takes over humans lays “hatch-lings” in their body.
After several long months of reading Contagious by Scott Sigler, I finally finished. I don’t really have much to say about this book besides that it was freakin’ amazing. When I first began to read it, I had no idea that it had a prequel…which didn’t detract from reading this one at all. Of course, I didn’t know a lot of back story, but that didn’t really matter all that much from the story.
A basic synopsis would be that a deadly contagion from outer space takes over human beings and lays “hatch-lings” in their body. Once these hatch-lings, hatch, they pull themselves free from the human host and try to build gateways to contact their home world and bring over an army or some force to take over the planet.
The best part of this novel is that 95% of the story is grounded in hard science, and EVERYTHING is explainable. Scott took a great deal of time researching and understanding how everything would work. This one of the things that makes Scott’s books amazing. By the end of the book, I was so interested in Scott’s references to army machinery and aircraft, I searched every one of the technical names he used, and I found ALL of them. Scott knows his shit. Seriously.
I’m not sure this book had that many flaws. A warning to the queasy, he does talk about some graphic details, like blood, gore, etc. but it’s pertinent to the story versus just some Quentin Tarantino shit. He does also drop the “f-bomb” alot…which means that if you ever have read this blog, you wont mind reading the word “fuck.” But, he doesn’t over use it like some of the modern screenwriters do. He uses it when necessary. It’s a humanizing characteristic when he uses it, and it really expands on the character’s emotions and their back story.
When he went on his “Stank Tour” to promote this book, I went to see him when he stopped in Falls Church, Virginia. He’s a great guy to listen and talk to, and the way he explained his writing and why he uses what he uses, was really enlightening. Most of the techniques he uses is to expand the characters and make them believable. In public he doesn’t drop the “f-bomb” a lot, but if you ever read his blog at http://scottsigler.com you’ll see he does use it himself. I’m spending a lot of time on this profanity issue because some people really have an issue with reading profanity, or even hearing it.
Great book overall…highly recommended.
Tags: disease, hard science, science fiction, thriller
ISBN: 9780307406316