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A review by tgv
Invasion by Luke Rhinehart
1.0
Too shallow, too slow.
The premise of the book is fun, and it starts out as an action-packed story. The idea of making it composed of different sources describing the same events is also good.
Unfortunately, both fall flat. The different sources (concurrent news papers, diaries, and reports and a book written afterwards) are all very similar in style, and don't break the chronology, and hardly change the viewpoint. It's all the same.
The plot turns out to be a pretext by the author to lecture his audience. He looks down upon humanity through the hyperintelligent aliens' continuous stream of remarks that are irrelevant to the story: the greenhouse effect, capitalism, discrimination, warfare, everything is briefly sneered at by beings with IQs way off the scale, who then only manage come off as carefree Buddhists that like to virtue-signal. A lot. And we know it's the author, because he repeats it when changing point of view. Unfortunately, the author's IQ is not 660, for then he would have known how boring all this gets.
The action and style also get boring. The author has tried to put in as many elements he dislikes as he could, and that means we've got to read about bankers, journalists, cable tv, FBI, CIA, NSA, US politicians, ISIL, and more, and in order to name them in context, the plot has been sacrificed. The reader has to witness pointless excursions and actions that have been written in such a haste that it would leave a child wondering about the why and how. E.g., at one point the protagonist and his family are chased by some three letter agency, the next moment they are in their home for two weeks without anything happening. And they all, including the small child, magically can scuba dive without making a noise.
All that makes this book nothing like the cover blurb promises. It is not fresh, nor smart, and certainly not very, very funny. Yes, it has some good one-liners, but there comes a point where witticisms become a nuisance. For this book, that is around midway. Had the author cut 50%, it might have been fun, but like this it's only suitable for people that need their convictions confirmed by cartoon characters.
The premise of the book is fun, and it starts out as an action-packed story. The idea of making it composed of different sources describing the same events is also good.
Unfortunately, both fall flat. The different sources (concurrent news papers, diaries, and reports and a book written afterwards) are all very similar in style, and don't break the chronology, and hardly change the viewpoint. It's all the same.
The plot turns out to be a pretext by the author to lecture his audience. He looks down upon humanity through the hyperintelligent aliens' continuous stream of remarks that are irrelevant to the story: the greenhouse effect, capitalism, discrimination, warfare, everything is briefly sneered at by beings with IQs way off the scale, who then only manage come off as carefree Buddhists that like to virtue-signal. A lot. And we know it's the author, because he repeats it when changing point of view. Unfortunately, the author's IQ is not 660, for then he would have known how boring all this gets.
The action and style also get boring. The author has tried to put in as many elements he dislikes as he could, and that means we've got to read about bankers, journalists, cable tv, FBI, CIA, NSA, US politicians, ISIL, and more, and in order to name them in context, the plot has been sacrificed. The reader has to witness pointless excursions and actions that have been written in such a haste that it would leave a child wondering about the why and how. E.g., at one point the protagonist and his family are chased by some three letter agency, the next moment they are in their home for two weeks without anything happening. And they all, including the small child, magically can scuba dive without making a noise.
All that makes this book nothing like the cover blurb promises. It is not fresh, nor smart, and certainly not very, very funny. Yes, it has some good one-liners, but there comes a point where witticisms become a nuisance. For this book, that is around midway. Had the author cut 50%, it might have been fun, but like this it's only suitable for people that need their convictions confirmed by cartoon characters.