Invasive: A Novel
Invasive: A Novel book cover

Invasive: A Novel

Hardcover – August 16, 2016

Price
$31.80
Format
Hardcover
Pages
336
Publisher
Harper Voyager
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0062351579
Dimensions
6 x 1.09 x 9 inches
Weight
1.15 pounds

Description

“Enthralling...Wendig does an impeccable job blending fact and fiction as he describes invasive species and insects being used as biological weapons. This is a propulsive tale that also examines our interaction with ― and maxadnipuxadlaxadtion of ― the natural world.” — Washington Post “Wendig crosses, blurs, and smashes genre boundaries more often – and more skillfully – than any author working today...INVASIVE is one part locked room mystery, one part 1950’s monster movie, and one part cutting-edge scientific thriller.” — Crimespree Magazine “Excellent...Follows the path set forth by Michael Crichton (a la Congo or Jurassic Park) in which Wendig’s exhaustive research brings a convincing story of humanity tinkering with nature ― only to have it backfire...Expect to see it on the big screen.” — Men's Journal “This roller-coaster survival tale with copious amounts of creepy insects will appeal to fans of Michael Crichton.” — Booklist “Fans of Michael Crichton will feel right at home.” — Publishers Weekly “Chuck Wendig can congratulate himself on a stunning new achievement: becoming the architect of all of my future nightmares...INVASIVE is a terrifying and tightly written thriller.” — RT Book Reviews “Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride. Another rip-roaring, deeply paranoid thriller about the reasons to fear the future.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[A] rich, darkly funny page-turner with details designed to make those little hairs on the back of your neck stand up with how plausible [it seems].” — Locus In the middle of the Pacific, on an isolated island known as Kolohe Atoll, a team of scientists is employed by a charismatic billionaire hoping to change the world through cutting-edge research. In a small cabin on a remote lake in the middle of the Adirondacks, FBI futurist Hannah Stander confronts a barely recognizable human body—one skinned alive by thousands of genetically engineered ants. Hannah’s investigation ultimately leads her to Kolohe. Although the scientists there vehemently deny any connection to the body, the more Hannah studies the group the more she suspects their work has sinister applications. And the more it looks like no one is getting off the island alive. Chuck Wendig is the author of the Miriam Black thrillers (which begin with Blackbirds ) and numerous other works across books, comics, games, and more. A finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the cowriter of the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus , he is also known for his popular blog, terribleminds.com. He lives in Pennsylvania with his family. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • From the author of
  • Wanderers
  • and the Miriam Black series
  • “Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride. Another rip-roaring, deeply paranoid thriller about the reasons to fear the future.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
  • Hannah Stander is a consultant for the FBI—a futurist who helps the Agency with cases that feature demonstrations of bleeding-edge technology. It’s her job to help them identify unforeseen threats: hackers, AIs, genetic modification, anything that in the wrong hands could harm the homeland.
  • Hannah is in an airport, waiting to board a flight home to see her family, when she receives a call from Agent Hollis Copper. “I’ve got a cabin full of over a thousand dead bodies,” he tells her. Whether those bodies are all human, he doesn’t say.
  • What Hannah finds is a horrifying murder that points to the impossible—someone weaponizing the natural world in a most unnatural way. Discovering who—and why—will take her on a terrifying chase from the Arizona deserts to the secret island laboratory of a billionaire inventor/philanthropist. Hannah knows there are a million ways the world can end, but she just might be facing one she could never have predicted—a new threat both ancient and cutting-edge that could wipe humanity off the earth.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(466)
★★★★
25%
(388)
★★★
15%
(233)
★★
7%
(109)
23%
(357)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Put on your s***tin' pants.

I once came home to find my entire bathroom drenched from floor to ceiling fan in thick, rippling, ink-black layers of ants. Since then, the only time I've felt that unmistakable brand of squirmy, visceral horror was reading this book.
15 people found this helpful
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A swing and a miss...

I'm a huge fan of Michael Crichton novels and this popped up in a "might also like" box so I gave it a try. It wasn't long before I felt as if I was being force fed left wing political propaganda with the countless climate change references. Yes, it may be part of the storyline but it was so excessive it actually motivated me to see if Chuck was affiliated with any climate change organizations.

Lo and behold I was not surprised to see Chuck was fired from Marvel for "profane political tweets" (wiki).

This could be overlooked if the book was great but that was not the case. As another reviewer wrote the confusing use of present tense of the book as well the repeated use of the same obscure phrases made it a struggle to get through.

If you are a fan if this genre (and Crichton) my advice is to look elsewhere.
7 people found this helpful
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Great Premise.....Lousy Writing

I really thought this book would "take me somewhere" but it failed miserably. The characters were grossly underdeveloped, especially the main girl Hannah and the author exhibited a propensity for interjecting meaningless dribble about her childhood and her mother. among other things. This story could have been the home run I expected but alas, not with this author. To steal a barb from the movie Ghostwriter, "all the words are there but they're just in the wrong place". The story line had too many unclear moments and could have been written better...and that's where my main gripe is. Wendig's style seems a cross between "Sci-Fi for dummies" and Cliff notes, I really can't understand how he is a best selling author. This book is infantile to say the least. HARD TO READ.
4 people found this helpful
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Read this with a can of Raid by your side

Hannah Stander was brought up by survivalists and the lessons she absorbed from childhood have left her with PTSD and a very unusual set of skills that she has parlayed into a job as an FBI consultant. Hannah is a futurist and her job is to figure out scenarios for events that could end the world. Hannah is a great character and as she goes about investigating a weird case— “When the going gets weird,” her handler says, “the weird need Hannah Sander”—we get bits and pieces of her past and realize just how complex a character she is.
So we’re engaged even before we realize what a strange little trip to Hawaii this book is going to be. Wendig obviously did a ton of research to create his nightmarish scenario with bio-engineered ants. Every single thing that happens after Hannah arrives at a cabin filled with “thousands of corpses” is both scary and plausible.
What Wendig has given us here is equal parts Michael Crichton and Stephen King, and it’s a cinematic page-turner of a story that will give you nightmares. “This is not our world,” Hannah’s mother Belinda tells her at one point. “We are not in control.” And she adds—because Hannah’s mom was a tough town—“we all die and insects will eat us down to the bone.” At least if we’re lucky, we’re dead when that happens.
Not everyone in this story has that luxury.
I hope this is the first book of a series. Hannah is just too good a character to be just a one-off.
3 people found this helpful
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99% very good

I gave this book four stars for only one reason. It happens early in the book and doesn't seem to impact the plot in any way but it really pissed me off. The rest of the book is very good. I really enjoy Chuck Wendig's writing style and I loved the details and science. Insects are definitely more threatening and deadly than a dinosaur or octocroc or whatever chimera the Syfy channel thinks up next. Mosquitos do kill thousands of people a year (not them, but diseases they carry and propagate).

My problem (Spoiler)
She has sex with Einar. The first night she meets him. Even though she knows he may have killed someone. She works for the FBI and has issues with anxiety and paranoia but she sleeps with a murder suspect. WHAT? It doesn't seem to fit with her character (she is NOT James Bond who seems to routinely pull this crap). I don't understand at all why this happened. I literally put the book down and read something else before coming back to it. That is why four stars.
3 people found this helpful
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Meh! A Quick, Don’t-Expect-Much Beach-Read

“Invasive,” which, thankfully, I checked out of the library rather than buying, is not much more than a shallow X-Files-esque “Monster of the Week” story that has little to recommend it beyond being a way to kill a few hours at the beach or airport.

There’s almost no character development, so I had a hard time telling the characters apart. Not clearly differentiating characters is a cardinal sin for an author of a book in which the reader is trying to figure out who the villain is as the story progresses. I couldn’t even tell one character from another, let alone determine who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

Much of the dialog is trite and unremarkable, and the sense of place—most of the story transpires on an island off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii—is not well enough crafted to put the reader “there.”

I don’t know enough about genetic engineering to judge whether the science is accurate or not, but much of it, which is, after all, central to the story, seemed superficially presented.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from modern-day scientific thriller novels, but, even if I am, “Invasive” fell short. Tackle it if you like, but I’m pretty sure it won’t find a place in most readers’ permanent libraries.
2 people found this helpful
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NOT HIS BEST

Not his best work, maybe skip this one. Try his other books, they're excellent.
2 people found this helpful
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Four Stars

good
1 people found this helpful
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fun read for bug lovers

A fun read for bug-invasion lovers of all kinds. (Marabunta!!) Interest premise about the yeast. I'll read more of his books.
1 people found this helpful
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WOW!

Other reviews of this book have gone into detail - so I won't repeat what they said.

The author KNOWS how to write, how to construct a sentence, and how to build a believable story that grabs you by the throat and won't let go.

If you want to be scared out of your shorts, read this book I guarantee you won't look at your garden the same way again.
1 people found this helpful