Infected

I got to the third page of the first chapter before I decided this isn't the book for me. For a book that had been in my wishlist since Siglers podcast that I probably should have just subscribed and listened to all those years ago, that's a sad result. This book had been recommended to me because of the podcast aspect (I was an early listener of podcasts due to a long commute) and because my science-related friends all thought the science was done well. I have connections that know the author and by all accounts he's a good guy.

So why did I drop the book so fast? I encountered language that bothers me. Willing to let it pass because it was being used to show the misogyny of the character, within another page I came across an ableist word that has not been okay to use ever, but by popular opinion since the 1980s or '90s. This book was written 1-2 decades after, which gives the previous word less of a pass. I guess that's two strikes and you're out for me. I don't need to read awful human sentiments in my entertainment since I deal with much of this stuff in my daily life.

Good, but not great. Entertaining, but predictable and cliche ridden. Vulgar and crass, in a somewhat amateurish way. Some characters made leaps of logic or understanding of which they shouldn't have been capable. Again, it was entertaining, and I did generally enjoy it, but I don't feel compelled to pick up the next book in the series.

Entertaining, but don't think too deeply about the science and the plot or you will end up poking holes in them.

Never has a book made me squeamish before reading Infected. Thank you Scott Sigler for one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Currently listening to the author-performed free podiobook of this. It's fantastic! I can't wait to finish it and read more of his stuff.

I 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.