I once overheard a friend of mine explain his belief in aliens;
“There must be aliens!” he stated (quite emphatically) “To believe we are the only living life forms in a universe as large and vast as ours would only prove we are an incredibly narcissistic race.”
At the time I simply rolled my eyes and continued on with my journey, (to find a decent cup of coffee) but as I look back now, (because well, this is a book about alien invasions and it triggered this random memory.) I would have to agree with my friend. And though I still humbly believe that an alien invasion is as likely as Joan Rivers refusing free plastic surgery I am no longer naive enough to think it’s not a possibility.
In “Thirst” Tommy Charles not only explores the possibility of an alien take-over, but he also paints a very dramatic picture of what he imagines to happen to society when it’s forced to look its own mortality in the face, and boy…it’s not a pretty sight.
“Brilliant and withdrawn seventeen-year-old Melissa Harding suspects that the immense alien ship that has descended upon the San Fransisco bay holds grave implications for her in particular, though she cannot say why. As society teeters over the edge, Melissa must face the unknown threat alone. Plunged headlong into a covert race against time, she must adapt, or else face a fate worse than death: responsibility for humanity’s extinction event.”
I’m not going to say that I loved this book, but at the same time, I won’t say I hated it. As with most Science Fiction it just took dedication to read.
Why?
Because it tended to hop. How exactly did it hop? Was it a bunny? (It is getting awfully close to Easter.) Ok…I’ll tell you.
The plot, or at the very least the emotions the author was trying to covey through his lead character Melissa tended to get a little muddled at times. Charles consciously chose to make his lead character a genius, (which is one of the reason the aliens are so drawn to her) but because of her superior intelligence her “personality” was difficult to pin down. One moment she was spouting theorems, the next she is woofing down whatever illegal substance she can get her hands on, and then…all of a sudden (despite her beautiful mind) she would find herself lost in alien conversation, not quite making sense of plans and motives.
All of these conflicting actions made the plot appear jumpy and generally off balance, and on more than one occasion I found myself re-reading parts for fear I had misunderstood the author’s intentions.
In short: the paths from point A to point B weren’t always clear.
That said, there was something incredibly enthralling about the conceptual idea of this book.
- The world is invaded.
- Two aliens are desperate for the “smart girl”
- They manipulate her
- She has to pick a fate.
And though the author should have introduced his “manipulation” plot line a tad earlier (to help keep the story from stalling out) there were a few diamond in the rough passages that kept me turning the pages.
For example (from locations 753 & 757)
“She wondered why the ship dweller had no tried to contact her again. Perhaps he’d sensed that she’d been tainted by the unstable one. She no longer could decide which of them was more dangerous. They were both murders”
“She didn’t know where her new homicidal alien benefactor was, but the leering patrons made her wonder which of them, if any, might be harboring him within their belly. Or brain-stem. Or however his consciousness was transmitted”
This is definitely not a story for everyone, hell…I’d go so far as to deem this one “genre specific” but I do think it showed promise. Maybe with a little more work, or a few more pages it could be the next big thing. For now, it’s just an average book about aliens.
Take it or leave it. That’s my final verdict.
Happy Reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: If you build it, they will come. (Oh wait…that was dead baseball dudes.)
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[Rating:3/5]Please Note: Though the characters in this novel are YOUNG the themes of this novel are NOT. I discourage anyone under the age of 18 from purchasing it.
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