Pandemic

Dr. Margaret Montoya is a fountain of self loathing. After saving the world three years ago from alien beings bent on destroying the human race, the general public sees her as responsible for killing millions and her name is dragged through the mud as the person responsible for the worst atrocity in the US. She has retreated from the world, internalized all that negativity, and destroyed her marriage by wallowing in selfpity and spending hours reading horrible things about her every day. The president calls her into action once again because she's the only person who can combat the new methods these aliens employ to turn humans against each other. It all originated for an unassuming metal cylinder found at the bottom of Lake Michigan that turned a Navy submarine into an enemy vessel. That cylinder is in the ruins of the submarine and it must be found and contained before it has the opportunity to spread.

I've been eagerly waiting for this book for 5 years and Pandemic was definitely worth the wait. This alien invasion shares characteristics with a zombie apocalypse coupled with religious zealotry, which makes it much more chilling. The aliens first invade human bodies and change into a few different types of Converted to serve the aliens. The new types not seen previous books are the most interesting and frightening. The behemoth type needs another person to form. The change elongates the persons limbs and makes bone shards protrude from their skin along with enhanced strength and speed. The other type is a leader. The infection is undetectable and allows all the groups of Converted to organize and work towards a single goal instead of simply causing random mayhem and violence as before. These creatures not only wear human faces, but unite to take over and express a type of religious zealotry I personally find frightening. The Converted are way more scary than zombies ever dream to be.

Each chapter is in the third person and through the perspective of a character in the story. The order is chaotic and features some characters more than others. Scott Sigler has a skilled way of getting into the minds of each character, even if they are only seen in their one chapter. I found the transition from normal person to Converted to be particularly interesting. One of the Converted describes in detail how his dad taught him to properly swing a baseball bat and then kills someone with one. The juxtaposition of a fond childhood memory and the sudden, jarring violence surprised me and really set the tone for the depravity of the Converted. Another character went through this and went from working hard towards beating the aliens to seeing horrifying changes in herself she knows are symptoms of the Converted to completely succumbing and viewing humans as vermin to be exterminated.

Honestly, I'm sad the series is over. Everything from Scary Perry to the thrilling conclusion is a wild ride to read. This tome of 500+ pages only took me 2 days to read and that was only because I had to stop for pesky things like eating and sleeping. I highly recommend the entire Infected series and I urge you to start the first book Infected soon.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins