Looking at this book, I didn't realize until I looked more closely at the cover art, that it was an overhead shot of people, gathered around a wide empty middle space. That one image communicates a lot about power and control. It's a great set-up for the tone of the novel.
This is about an extraterrestrial contact, both sudden and consequential, with huge hulking powerful spacecraft. The people in this story are stunned by the presence of the alien ships and don't know what to think. Nothing they were seeing fit into their expectations of reality. How could this be happening? Why? What did it mean? What would happen next? It threw people into a state of heightened sympathetic nervous system response, which is of course, unsustainable. They also could not have known that part of the reason why the aliens were so bold was due to the fact that they already had folks in place who knew they were coming. When you think about it, that's really the only way a species can confidently appear in the atmosphere of another occupied world.
So, not only did the ships appear in the skies suddenly, they acted suddenly. Unlike the movie "Independence Day" these aliens weren't here to destroy cities. They just stole the people. They stole every person in a whole city, tossing any vehicles the people had been in, as if the cars were crumpled up burger wrappers. Hot trash rained down from the atmosphere for days. It's a premise I haven't yet seen in alien invasion stories, and I have to say, I dig it. It really works. At this point, I have big "Don't get on that ship: To Serve Man: It's a cookbook!" vibes, but the real reason for the alien abduction is more complex that I anticipated.
After this horrifying beginning, when people around the world could only imagine the worst about what might happen to those taken by the aliens, the story suddenly shifts to introduce a Scottish Psychiatrist with a highly unusual patient. What prompts her to connect her patient's elaborate seemingly delusional story to this sudden gruesome group disappearance? Well, first we need to hear his story for ourselves.
And what a story it is. This man explains who he really is, and why he is here on our Earth. There are 23 of those like him, and this detail made me smile, because there are 23 pairs of chromosomes which form the genetic makeup of a human being: gene expression all encoded in our DNA in a very specific pattern combination of proteins: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thiamine: A G C T. And, if human beings can be reduced to letter sequences (extremely long letter sequences in the genome, but still), why can't machine-based sentience also be called "life," just created by numbers: 0 and 1? Both are codes, after all. It's an intriguing premise. It's like a little Easter egg in the story.
And, I have to say that the reference to the sudden Cognitive Revolution, a rapid change in early humans ability to think, build, and use tools in new ways, has always bothered me. It wasn't gradual. It was sudden and drastic, especially for the other types of early humans, who were wiped off the face of the earth. It's a great vector for any number of conspiracy theories, so why not aliens? The author taps into our discomfort with the vaguest unexplained parts of human history. It's smarter than many narratives on this point.
The author could have made all the aliens cold and monolithic in nature, but he didn't. It seems more likely that they would still have individual characteristics and variations. A couple of them might even have mixed emotions about the humans. It felt charming, hopeful, warm-hearted even, to think that one of the aliens would have the heart to warn the descendants of one of his favorite people, that she should flee the alien ships. It gave me the same feeling as the Biblical scene where God Himself gently closes the door on Noah's Ark, or when God walks alone in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening. The alien has that same combination of deep care and limitless power.
The author writes well, and is especially good at atmospheric description. I loved how he called a gray day in Scotland "a tinplate sky bolted to the heavens." There are many great phrases like that sprinkled throughout the narrative, and not one of them wanders into purple prose. The writing is taut and professional. Hider also has a deft hand in combining two powerful forces: social media and horror, which truly are made for each other. The potential was always there to exploit.
If you know me, I'm always looking for subtext or hidden hints from the author which provide even more depth to the story, so bear with me. Perhaps I'm reading way too much into it, but the fact that the sentient artificial super-intelligence creates 462 "harvesters" to help them gather all the humans, seems like a very specific numerical reference to genetic completeness: each of us humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 pairs from each of our two parents.
I love this kind of stuff. Okay, back to the story: So, how does society react to an alien attack? Do they put their differences aside and work cooperatively towards a solution? Ha ha. No. This is not an episode of "The Super Friends." In real life, people take advantage of any volatility in the social contract, and generally go berserk. When an imminent threat remains murky for too long, people can't stand the uncertainty and create targets for their frustration. The aliens smartly wait them out for a while. The one thing everyone wants is for someone to convince them that that everything is going to be okay. If they can trust in that message, they will refuse to let go of it. It feeds into our most powerful impulses.
I really like how the author presents a wide variety of people's responses to the aliens promises: everything from violent distrust to ecstatic hope. The author also does a great job of moving the story along, carefully adding the right number of characters while ramping up the tension, and never allowing the story to lag. It's an adventure, from start to finish. It's a fun read, and I finished it in one day, because I had to know what was going to happen next in every stage of the story.
Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for providing this e-book for review. I'm definitely going to read this author again in the future.
Also, there are two really good books out this year, both titled RIPE. You definitely want to read the other one, too, by Sarah Rose Etter.
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