Book Log #26: Infected, by Scott Sigler
Apr. 15th, 2009 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI wanted to like this book. I was ready to let it entertain me with its creepy-sounding premise: alien spores infecting hapless human beings and turning them violent and delusional, while directing them to some mysterious purpose. Meanwhile the government has to race to figure out what's going on before word of the violence spreads to the general public--and before the aliens become enough of a genuine threat that military action must be taken.
Okay, cool, I thought. However, the book that that premise promised was not the book I got. Most of the focus is on Perry Dawsey, a young ex-football-player who's infected by the Triangles and who fights a losing battle against encroaching insanity as they grow within him. But here's the thing: the character's backstory already has him violent and temperamental, and specifically fighting to keep that part of him under control. That's the thing that makes him an interesting and sympathetic character, and it's this that gets shot right out from under him the longer he wages his personal battle against his body's invaders. It gets to the point that when he meets another person infected with the Triangles, he's so far gone that he assaults her with no more than the faintest glimmer of conscience--and by then, with no real sign remaining in him of common decency, I honestly found myself wondering why the book had made me hang out in this guy's point of view for the majority of the camera time.
Nor are we given any real, strong characters to balance Dawsey out--especially when female characters are on camera. We get a woman who's in charge of the scientific investigation, but who lacks personal fortitude and has to be nudged into asserting herself by the agent to whom she's attracted. Also, the unfortunate female victim of the Triangles Dawsey assaults is signified in the narrative mostly by the fact that she's a) female, b) fat, and c) pathetic, particularly in comparison to Dawsey himself, for not fighting against the organisms growing inside her. Granted, this is supposed to be from Dawsey's POV, and he's well and thoroughly on board the train to psychotown at that point--but nonetheless, it was grating to read.
The book's not without a few strong points; I did like the visual tricks it was playing with using unusual fonts and layout to signify when the spores were speaking, once the ones in Dawsey became sentient. There are definite pacing issues, but Sigler's writing did in general overcome those well enough to keep me reading to the end even if I wasn't appreciating the characters very much. And the overall question of the story, what the Triangles are, where they've come from, and what they're trying to achieve, is suitably intriguing enough to keep the story moving.
For me though, unfortunately, it just didn't click. Two stars.
Okay, cool, I thought. However, the book that that premise promised was not the book I got. Most of the focus is on Perry Dawsey, a young ex-football-player who's infected by the Triangles and who fights a losing battle against encroaching insanity as they grow within him. But here's the thing: the character's backstory already has him violent and temperamental, and specifically fighting to keep that part of him under control. That's the thing that makes him an interesting and sympathetic character, and it's this that gets shot right out from under him the longer he wages his personal battle against his body's invaders. It gets to the point that when he meets another person infected with the Triangles, he's so far gone that he assaults her with no more than the faintest glimmer of conscience--and by then, with no real sign remaining in him of common decency, I honestly found myself wondering why the book had made me hang out in this guy's point of view for the majority of the camera time.
Nor are we given any real, strong characters to balance Dawsey out--especially when female characters are on camera. We get a woman who's in charge of the scientific investigation, but who lacks personal fortitude and has to be nudged into asserting herself by the agent to whom she's attracted. Also, the unfortunate female victim of the Triangles Dawsey assaults is signified in the narrative mostly by the fact that she's a) female, b) fat, and c) pathetic, particularly in comparison to Dawsey himself, for not fighting against the organisms growing inside her. Granted, this is supposed to be from Dawsey's POV, and he's well and thoroughly on board the train to psychotown at that point--but nonetheless, it was grating to read.
The book's not without a few strong points; I did like the visual tricks it was playing with using unusual fonts and layout to signify when the spores were speaking, once the ones in Dawsey became sentient. There are definite pacing issues, but Sigler's writing did in general overcome those well enough to keep me reading to the end even if I wasn't appreciating the characters very much. And the overall question of the story, what the Triangles are, where they've come from, and what they're trying to achieve, is suitably intriguing enough to keep the story moving.
For me though, unfortunately, it just didn't click. Two stars.