Invasion

After a night of shooting stars, strange small impermeable metal discs are found scattered about. If you pick one up, you receive a small sting. This is followed later by mild flu-like symptoms (unless you have a pre-existing medical condition and then you die). When you recover, you seem to be a better version of yourself – interested in fixing the environment, ending wars, and making sure everyone around you also gets stung by a disc.

The small discs are alien spacecraft carrying a virus like particle that activates some of the ‘non-coding’ DNA in the genome of many living organisms. Implanted millions of years ago, this is the first time there is a life form evolved enough to interest the aliens, which are not just determined to show more take over individuals’ bodies but the whole of earth by opening an interdimensional door.

OK, it’s a bit corny, and being written in 1997, also a bit dated. But I enjoyed it. It’s a decent pandemic read about a pandemic caused not by rogue laboratories but by far advanced life forms. And Yay! Science saves the day …. show less

Let me put it bluntly: This book was almost painful to read. There were moments when I almost felt as if I were reading a creative writing project submitted by a high school student. It was contrived, almost juvenile, and at times the storyline made me feel like I was listening to an eight-year-old boy ramble on about his imaginary world. Like when my friend's son was bringing me into his play world one time, and he pulled some snips of electrical wire out of his pocket, held up the different colored strands and proceeded to tell me how they were DNA strands that he was going to...I don't know...morph into some hybrid or something. THAT's what this book was like for me. The ramblings of a child's mind.

At times, the book seemed almost show more pedantic, as if Cook was throwing around big words and medical jargon to show off. (Sidenote: Isn't it ironic that one would almost have to be a pedant in order to use the term "pedantic"? Just a little self-observation.)

This definitely was not what I expected of Robin Cook, one of the premier medical thriller authors. I struggled to stick with it. The last 100 pages I found myself constantly counting how many pages I had remaining to endure before I got to read a REAL story!

I may have liked this story at 12 years of age, but not at 40. If you are above the age of 17, I say, "Avoid this book!" There are so many better yarns out there to entertain your mind! show less

In Invasion, Robin Cook brings his expertise to a new level of contagious terror by bringing to Earth a virus from another galaxy! Beau and his girlfriend, Cassy, are both seniors in college and have bright futures ahead of them until one day, Beau finds a small, black object that stings him. Within hours, he’s headed for the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms. Soon, this new flu is spreading rapidly, and the people who survive are never the same again. Cassy and her small group of friends hunt for a cure while running and hiding from grinning monsters. I felt like I was reading a Steven King or Dean Koontz book. It's entertaining but not one of this author’s best.

I enjoyed this book. This is the first book of Cook's that had a definite sci-fi aspect to it, the others I've read ere just medical thrillers (if with some speculative sci fi in there) but this story involves aliens. I was surprised when I first realized it, but it was still a pretty enjoyable story. The reason I gave it just 3 stars was because the ending was rather cliched and anticlimactic.

I found this book on the shelf at the cottage we were renting while on vacation in St. John and thought it might be a good beach read. It was, sort of, in a dopey way. Unlike most of Cook’s medical mysteries, this one includes a science fiction twist: extraterrestrial aliens who appear on earth embedded in black disks with sharp points protruding from them. Whenever someone pricks their finger on one of the points, he or she is infected with a virus that causes them to become part of a collective consciousness with the alien-lifeforms. The first person to be infected, Beau Stark, becomes the leader of the collective consciousness, and it’s up to his girlfriend, Cassy, to save him—and humanity. As I say, dopey, but not a terrible show more beach read. show less

It's a little bit "body snatchers" and a little bit "tommyknockers" and I did some big eye-rolling in places, but still a quick fun read.

Very tattered paperback, picked up from the Friends of the Library gimme shelves. I'll send it back so someone else can laugh and roll their eyes over it.

Ich kann mir dieses Buch gut als 50er Jahre B-Movie vorstellen. Als Buch ist das alles doch arg flach und trashig....