Review: A stranded alien story in need of more than a phone call home.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 11, 2014
(Disclosure: this is a review of a complimentary copy of the book provided by the author in exchange for a fair review.)What if, instead of making flowers bloom and repurposing spelling toys, E.T. had opted instead to simply bite Elliot’s face off and snack on the delightful meat within?That’s a pretty close description of how the reader is brought into the world of Class 5 by Shaun Horton.In this world, alien invasions, while not necessarily commonplace, are a catalogued phenomena, with an entire elite military division dedicated to keeping them a secret. I almost said “protecting civilians from the alien threat”, but not so much.As the book gets going, our stranded “Silver” alien is on the run, trying to find enough food (i.e. people) to eat until his buddies can return to pick him up.On the other side, we have THE MILITARY, headed up by the ruthless Captain Tharris and his special detachment.Caught in the middle are the civilians of Seguro, AZ, and the surrounding area.I will say that Class 5 is a very fast read. However, and a little unfortunately, it comes off like a very fast write as well. It’s hard to come down too hard on what seems like a very earnest effort, and I’m all for encouraging the self-publishing revolution.But… this novel needed at least one rewrite, if not two. The logic that Horton sets up to drive his plot (and nothing at all wrong with the plot - the cat and mouse aspect promised on the liner note, when it works, is quite entertaining) falls down as soon as anyone asks “why?” As in “why would this character do that?” or, more appropriately, “why the hell would they not have done this?”  The answer - and a good summary of what I took away from the novel was “because that’s what happens next.”Horton piles misery on his protagonist (who really isn’t a part of the story for the first five chapters), and then pulls her out basically by saying that she pulled out of it.Okay - before I get too negative - there are some redeeming moments. The chapters written from the alien’s perspective are somewhat enjoyable, and the physical struggles the thing is enduring to stay alive in the Arizona atmosphere make the alien the most three dimensional character in the book. (Though it’s hard to take its criticism of the human race’s “barbarism” when those thoughts are being had over a mouthful of mailman.)All in all, this book, while I can’t recommend it, shows that the author does have the potential chops to deliver a satisfying action story, he just has to make sure there’s a few more rounds of review, edit, re-write before hitting “publish.”