Aliens: Phalanx by Scott Sigler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
THIS BOOK F**KING RULES
It really has everything for me: genuinely interesting worldbuilding with its own unique ecosystems and speculative biology to accompany it, in-depth discussions about the politics and logistics of living in the characters' world, lovable, interesting, three-dimensional characters, and to top it all off, there are also the aliens from one of my favorite horror movie franchises thrown in there for good measure. On its own, this book would be an easy recommendation for its worldbuilding and characters, but the xenomorphs really are icing on the cake that pull this whole experience together beautifully.
And the characters, god, the characters. Some of the most powerful, well-written protagonists that I've had the pleasure of following in a while. Ahiliyah, Brandun, and Creen have quickly become one of my favorite trios in literature, and I look forward to the day that I reread this book and get to follow their stories all over again.
This book is long - roughly 500 pages - but it was fast-paced and constantly engaging. I often found myself sitting down to read "just one chapter", only to find myself still in the same place two hours later still glued to the page. This book made me feel like a kid again, back when I used to pick a book from the library and find myself absolutely engrossed in it until my parents would drag me away. I have been in a deep reading slump this year - in part because my life has been busy, but also because I have found myself bouncing off all the books I've picked up in recent memory - and I'm happy to say that this book reignited my love of reading.
I only have two criticisms for this book, and they're both relatively minor. For one, in a book with such a diverse cast and open-minded prose, I found it distracting how some of the overweight characters were treated. Especially one of the protagonist's old friends, Panda; it felt like every time he was in a scene, some sort of mention or pot-shot had to be taken at his weight. He was a fairly minor character in the story, and for such a long book that otherwise resonated with me very deeply, I don't think that this should scare off readers by any means, but it happened often enough to be distracting. My only other complaint would be that the book seemed to have a fair amount of grammatical errors that could have been rectified by a final pass with the editor but, again, very minor complaint. I have never published a book personally, let alone anything of this length, so who would I be to let that affect my scoring of this book at all?
As an avid science fiction fan, I would easily recommend this book to anyone who finds themselves even a little drawn to its premise. My least favorite aspect of fantasy novels is almost always when the action is stopped for the characters to stand in a council and discuss politics or battle strategies, but everything in this novel felt so well-researched and alive that I found myself luxuriating in every word, just to immerse myself deeper in this world. The setting is so unlike everything I have ever known, and yet I find myself coming away from the book feeling like I lived in its holds my whole life. Please read it!
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