Review: A good sci-fi/horror read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 4, 2014
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Class 5 from the author, who said he'd like to know what I thought of it. Though he didn't specifically ask for a review, I want to make sure no one questions the validity of this one. I like what I like.Class 5 was a little bit sci-fi and a little bit horror--just enough of each to keep me turning pages quickly. The story caught my interest right away and kept it.The basic premise involves an alien crash-landing on Earth and trying to hide while keeping itself alive until a rescue team comes to bring it to its home planet. The military, aware of these occasional happenings, is equally determined to find and eliminate the alien. This particular alien type is known as a Silver, one of the more dangerous types, and it derives its nourishment (unfortunately) from humans while it waits for its ride. Because of the dry Arizona environment, it's constantly trying to remain hydrated by staying out of the daylight while fighting the need for adequate nourishment...and the leisure time to enjoy its meals when it finds them.Not only does the military team have to find and kill the Silver, but it also has to determine who has had close contact with the dead in its wake, because the creature leaves a trail of toxic spores which cause respiratory arrest in the infected. Those dying of the spore infection pass along more spores, and so on. The military team not only takes measures to cover the trail of the dying, but begins to take the mission parameters further and further into madness under the leadership of their captain.I didn't really care for the female main character. Yes, she lost everything, but she didn't really seem like that great a wife and mother, so my sympathy for her was minimal. Also, another main character didn't do the "obvious" logical thing when presented with a preventable catastrophe; i.e., go and tell someone so they could stop it. However, neither of these things lessened my enjoyment of the book.You know what enhanced my enjoyment of Class 5? Reading a novel by a self-published author that was not riddled with grammatical errors, misspellings, clichés and who knows what else. There was a handful of comma splices and typos, but they were very few in number and clearly edit errors, rather than an author not knowing how to form a sentence.This is the first book I've read by Shaun Horton, and I believe it won't be my last.