Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A good YA thriller. A little longer than it needed to be. Became a little repetitive at first, also so unnecessary to run to the ship, run back to their ship, then back to the main ship? I didn’t find a single character relatable or like able. The writing seemed a bit childish, reactions to authority seemed unrealistic.
Love the space zombies
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
3.75*
This YA-scifi-horror novel turned out to be a fun and very easy read. From the beginning, you cannot help yourself making parallels with Aliens (second film): a disparate crew is re-directed to investigate an SOS message from a mining crew on a fringe planet. Naturally, when they get there, they find the quarry site abandoned, that is until they stumble on the first dead body...
The characters also echoed stereotypes we’ve seen in many films. And yet, I couldn’t help being entertained watching them react to the events unfolding, and wishing untimely death to a couple of them. On the other hand, Thea was definitely the most interesting protagonist. Her voice and resolve were compelling and I feel, without her, this book wouldn’t have worked so well. Coen was another one that surprised me.
Contagion doesn’t bring anything new as such to the table but as an entertaining way to spend a few hours, it does the job well. Furthermore, the second instalment of this duology has the potential to be much better.
This YA-scifi-horror novel turned out to be a fun and very easy read. From the beginning, you cannot help yourself making parallels with Aliens (second film): a disparate crew is re-directed to investigate an SOS message from a mining crew on a fringe planet. Naturally, when they get there, they find the quarry site abandoned, that is until they stumble on the first dead body...
The characters also echoed stereotypes we’ve seen in many films. And yet, I couldn’t help being entertained watching them react to the events unfolding, and wishing untimely death to a couple of them. On the other hand, Thea was definitely the most interesting protagonist. Her voice and resolve were compelling and I feel, without her, this book wouldn’t have worked so well. Coen was another one that surprised me.
Contagion doesn’t bring anything new as such to the table but as an entertaining way to spend a few hours, it does the job well. Furthermore, the second instalment of this duology has the potential to be much better.
I fell in love with Bowman's historical fantasy, Vengeance Road around 6 years ago and have had her space opera adventure on my TBR list for that long. Bowman really excels at complicated space ship and base choreography. You do end up caring about her characters-- even the ones making bone headed decisions.
With alternating POV (wish we had just stayed in the head of Thea the intern the whole time, would have kept things tense and we didn't really need Coen's POV really as foreshadowing, the descent into the abandoned base was tense enough) we ride along with a survey group called to an outlying base by a distress call.
Thea is an intern for a famed doctor whose trembling hands requires an assistant for her research. There's a tech crew, a captain with something to prove, and a pilot looking to get hired fulltime by the company funding the survey.
Of course the base is abandoned. Of course something terrible lies waiting for them. This is more or less a space opera "escape from the rabid zombies" but its a fun one. With space ships, air, bases, airlocks, lifts, etc. as their backdrop we get lots of fun running around and escaping.
While the ending does close one chapter, it opens up a cliffhanger ending for another chapter. The second book happened to be on sale when I finished Contagion so I went ahead and bought the second one. Although I didn't fall in love with the characters here as I did with Vengeance Road, I do think it will be fun to find out how they escape their next predicament.
With alternating POV (wish we had just stayed in the head of Thea the intern the whole time, would have kept things tense and we didn't really need Coen's POV really as foreshadowing, the descent into the abandoned base was tense enough) we ride along with a survey group called to an outlying base by a distress call.
Thea is an intern for a famed doctor whose trembling hands requires an assistant for her research. There's a tech crew, a captain with something to prove, and a pilot looking to get hired fulltime by the company funding the survey.
Of course the base is abandoned. Of course something terrible lies waiting for them. This is more or less a space opera "escape from the rabid zombies" but its a fun one. With space ships, air, bases, airlocks, lifts, etc. as their backdrop we get lots of fun running around and escaping.
While the ending does close one chapter, it opens up a cliffhanger ending for another chapter. The second book happened to be on sale when I finished Contagion so I went ahead and bought the second one. Although I didn't fall in love with the characters here as I did with Vengeance Road, I do think it will be fun to find out how they escape their next predicament.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The characters are absolutely unbearable but I needed to know what happened
This storyline is tried and tested. It could have been a really good book, but it wasn’t. The main thing that annoyed me is the way grown adults follow nonsensical, dangerous orders from a ‘captain’ who in reality is actually a corporate manager. This isn’t the military! The worst thing that will happen if you don’t do what she says is that you lose your job. I understand that the temp and the intern feel pressured into doing what she says but all of the characters complain that the orders are very dangerous and they should contact corporate before going forward. And yet they all just go along with her anyway?! This nonsense is what moves the entire story forward. It needs some actual, reasonable pressure to motivate the characters. Not just an incompetent manager shouting ‘because I said so!’.
Another big annoyance was that everyone looks to a 17 year old high school student to be a fountain of knowledge. And then a celebrated scientist expects her to finish decades of research because she has wisdom…. A teenager’s innate wisdom doesn’t equate to a degree in genetics or molecular science or any kind of skills that will allow her to find a cure to an alien zombie microbe.
Another big annoyance was that everyone looks to a 17 year old high school student to be a fountain of knowledge. And then a celebrated scientist expects her to finish decades of research because she has wisdom…. A teenager’s innate wisdom doesn’t equate to a degree in genetics or molecular science or any kind of skills that will allow her to find a cure to an alien zombie microbe.
I started listening to this with my 8YO and then found it was NOT appropriate! Oops.
I finished it on my own. Not gonna lie, it took me some time to get into it. But in the end I was invested!
It’s about a crew getting dispatched to a distant planet for a search-and-rescue mission. When they arrives, they find an abandoned site, littered with rotten food, discarded weapons...and dead bodies. They try to piece together what decimated an entire operation, but soon realize some things are best left buried.
I finished it on my own. Not gonna lie, it took me some time to get into it. But in the end I was invested!
It’s about a crew getting dispatched to a distant planet for a search-and-rescue mission. When they arrives, they find an abandoned site, littered with rotten food, discarded weapons...and dead bodies. They try to piece together what decimated an entire operation, but soon realize some things are best left buried.