Invasion: Alien Invasion, Book 1

I have no idea why there are so many 5-star reviews for this book. The entire book is about a family traveling from New York to Colorado. There were no "Invasion" like the book title suggested. Don't get me wrong the 6-characters in the book are VERY well developed, considering that 99% of the book was used for that purpose alone. The authors went so minute in detail to develop the characters that they left the story out.The book was free via Kindle so I cannot complain about the price. I did waste a few days reading this book and for the most part I had to FORCE myself to continue reading in hopes it will get better. Unfortunately it was a big disappointment at the end. Maybe that is the reason it is free and make us pay the $4.99 each for Book 2 & 3. No spoilers to tell as I would like others to form their own opinion on the book and hopefully write an honest review.

Mr. Truant is a good writer and has written a very good story although it is not complete. His character development is excellent, the action moves quickly but the story moves glacially I did not realize that this book was not self contained; it leaves you hanging. I should have got the hint: Book 1. It raises many questions that it doesn't even try to answer. I doubt if I go on to another volume, seems a waste of time without any promise of reward. I do enjoy authors that provide a sort of continuity within a series of books. I am thinking of Lee Childs with his "Reacher" novels and Tony Hillerman with his tales of Navajo country. They both know and knew how to tell a one volume story that concluded within two covers and still moved you to seek more of the same. I suppose there are some people that enjoy being kept on a "hook" looking for a tantalizing finish in a prolonged three of four book series; I am not one of them and while I did read the whole book, I did not particularly care for it.

Book starts out with promise, but the main character is conveniently paranoid and therefore well prepared for a cross-country trek. The whole book features the troubles of getting to Colorado while the rest of the country is panicking. So much of the book is 'character' development consisting of inner monologue and angst. By mid-book, I was skipping to see the action, which was much contrived. 5 people from NYC are able to saddle and ride horses for hours without problems? I doubt they'd all be that prepared. And I doubt they'd get as far as they seemed to.I had 2 big problems - unresolved conflict with the kids (no spoilers) and the "cliff hanger" ending that is basically designed to force you to buy the next book. It was like Goblet of Fire ended after Harry's name came out of the goblet. What's going to happen next? Well, I'm not buying the next book. It'd be a waste of my time and I don't really care about these characters.

The description from Book Bub is not encouraging, " In six days, a host of alien crafts will descend upon Earth -" I wonder if in addition to peoples, the deers, geeses and such will be in danger from the alien crafts.The grammar in the book itself is better but it is written on a level comprable to young adult literature. However, mature themes and language make it unsuitable for young adults. The main character is a rich business mogul who has had drug fueled premonitions of the invasion under the guidance of a shaman. Right. For a rich man with advance warning, Meyer is ill prepared. In addition to poor preparation, he and his group make several foolish decisions. Several parts of the book don't ring true. For instance Meyer and his family walk across inner city Chicago with no problems, but boy, when they get out amongst the country folks! Come the Apocalypse Chicago street gangs turn benign but Ma and Pa Kettle turn vicious.

The Alien Invasion book series is not for me. If you are obsessed with Kim Kardashian, her dysfunctional family or just an admirer of the rich and famous, then, maybe, this series will be for you. The book is listed as science fiction but the science fiction part of the book is thin and not satisfying for the true fan. This is really a character study of a family, who have that enabling, special exemption of the wealthy, cope with the breakdown of society as a fleet of alien space craft approach the earth. Here’s the point - you can substitute any severe global political, financial or climate crisis for approaching alien spacecraft and have the same story. Thankfully the first book, Invasion, was sold at the teaser rate of $0.99. After the first third of the book I skipped ahead to the ending. I abandoned the series entirely after reading the free sample of book two, Contact, only to find it is a repeat of the family enduring more menace from the unwashed masses. That was the totally unsatisfactory ending from the first book but to start the second book with the same dumb plot device was enough. Moving on.

I really do enjoy end of the world novels. What turned me off of this series, after the second book, is the author's use of apparent mysticism. The main character had been getting high off of a hallucinogen for years and kept having visions that he would be a part of some grand scheme. Along come the aliens and apparently they are the scheme. Perhaps the author had plans to wrap this up nicely in the last book. I lost interest before getting there.

I actually give it no stars. Superfluous sleaze and vulgarity from the start that does absolutely nothing for the plot.

Drove me nuts.....1. the characters are very un-likeable, especially the family members.2. the narrator's edgy tone.....he must have hated them, too.3. the author's constant going on tangent's to describe boring minutia. To me it was boring filler, and I had to fast forward through a lot of it.4. I started to get the next book, then realized it was going to drag on & on for 4 more books! Aggggggghhhhhhh!No thanks.....life is too short to waste it on this frustrating, boring & bloated epic-whatever-it-is.

When I realised that I was more than 30% through the book and yet they were still sitting in the same van with 1300 tedious miles to go that was it for me, time to find something more interesting. The characters in the story are not people you can feel for or have any common ground with since they are all rich, and apparently being led by someone who foresaw the invasion while loaded with hallucinogenic drugs, still this is no more daft than the rest of this turgid tale.Not a book I can recommend except as a cure for insomnia.

Pullease, give me a book where am anxious to see what happens on the following page; NOT an analysis of everyone's internal thoughts, guilt, fears, motives. Not interested! "On the road" books are tedious to begin with and this was made worse by the fact that nothing happens for 60 or so pages and then something does. Is one character wondering what effect they are having on another character? Really, I don't want to to know; I just want to know what happens next without having to plough (Americans note the correct spelling(!)) through turgid introspection. The sad thing is it did not encourage me to buy the next book as I feared I would just suffer again. Partly I want to know what happens next but the author's methods and style render me unable to really care that much.

Hated it!! Spoiler alert --- don't read on if you don't want to know? What invasion ? Does not happen in this book until last twenty pages! Turgid, boring.. And characters are all paper thin, and uninteresting

Mixed reviews about this book on Amazon, but I quite enjoyed it. I was aware that there were quite a few in the series, so wasn't expecting the whole caboodle in this one volume. I didn't find it too tedious with the trekking across the USA, but I've just been reading the 'Surviving the Evacuation' books by Frank Tayell and volume 1 of that isn't particularly fast paced either. I think it can sometimes be a good thing as it helps to set the scene.The predominant gripe I have (as do many others from reading the comments) is that the main guy isn't exactly likeable. I doubt many readers are going to find much in common with the filthy rich .......but once you get over that, it's not too bad. The others are bearable once you get to know them (apart from his ex-wife, who fortunately doesn't feature that much but I have a feeling that we might be hoping Vol 3 is going to be called ''Shallow Grave''!)I'll give vol 2 a try and see how it is.

As a latecomer to the world of e-books (Kindle Paperwhite now on the way), I picked Invasion as a good-as-any £0.99 read in one of my favourite genres (because Asimov’s Foundation series isn’t available – hardback it is then).In one way, I’m pleased I did, because it has introduced me early on to the cynical world of spinning out a story into as many “books” as possible, with low-cost options at the outset, steadily sucking you into having to buy more just to see what happens.I have no problem with series novels, so long as each book also legitimately stands on its own as a good story with some conclusions. As with Foundation or, to pick a different genre, Deighton’s Hook, Line and Sinker spy trilogy.But this – boy, it is so slow, slow, slow! If one cared about the main characters, then it might be OK – but you don’t. Or if there were some subtle plotlines on the side going on – but there aren’t. Or even if it was well written – which it isn’t.I kept going to the end because I couldn’t believe that there wouldn’t be some interesting developments or twists given the overarching theme of the story. I shouldn’t have bothered – all entirely predictable.Frankly, Invasion could and should be stripped down to a single chapter in a book - I suspect that the other books in the series will be the same. Unfortunately, I can’t advise on that because I was not inclined to waste my time on the next instalment – even though it was being offered for free!Much better than this around – avoid.

I so wanted to love this book - I'm a huge fan of the genre. However, I gave up after plodding through 200 pages of turgid writing where very little happens. There is so much banal introspection from the characters in comparison to the actual plot that it actually becomes quite annoying to read. It's about 90% pointless character analysis and about 10% plot. I would suggest that if you took out all of the superfluous content, you could squeeze the entire plot into a few chapters if it were well-written.A shame as I was really looking forward to reading the whole series but the Author has shot himself in the foot with such a tedious first book.

only gave two stars instfead of one bcos i like the authors very much. Unfortunately i didnt enjoy this story. i especially didnt like the main character Meyer. there wasnt anything much to like about him. none of the characters were relatable. the kids were annoying. So much needless description when they travelled in the car that it became a struggle to actually read but when they finally lose the car and find horses and maybe some interesting situations might arise seeing as they are all rich and entitled, the story completly skips that part. i dont really want to payg to continue reading. i may have if it were free on prime.sorry authors, beam much more enjoyabe

I like sci-fi and enjoyed this book, both the ways it followed expected plots and also the twists. It is well written (not always the case) and the characters are quite interesting, interesting enough that I wanted to know they would be fine. There are similarities to 'The Death of Grass' in terms of the journey, and to mainstream sci-fi but it is intruiging enough to keep reading....and I've just downloaded the sequel. I liked the way it was laid out as day one, day two, etc. It gave form to both the progression and tension of the story.The futuristic setting is believeable enough and the descriptions of the way humanity disintegrates is, unfortunately, highly probable. Although it's more likely for Man to be the author of his own destruction judging by recent world events, it is also fairly arrogant to think us humans are the only intelligent life form in the universe. So yes this was an enjoyable read.

I almost didn't read this just because of the title. And, at first blush, because the opening couple of chapters ask us to identify with a bunch of not-that-likeable rich US citizens. But it's a testament to the writer's skill that you do end up caring about them.Possible Spoilers ahead:This book is less about an actual invasion, but the response of the idiot human race to a possible invasion. The author is particularly strong on the psychology of groups and crowds, and how, under stress, violence can erupt as the veneer of civilization crumbles. The writing is good, and I found the edge of panic breaking out, just visible to the central characters, very convincing. They have to journey across the US, held together by the central character's weird belief system that he received through meddling with psychotropic drugs (which I found original, at least).All in all, I'll definitely be reading the next one to see what happens next...

I'm not usually much of a sci-fi reader, but I'm a huge fan of these guys and their SPP podcast, and as someone looking to begin serialisation I thought I'd give it a try.Firstly, I loved the feel of the whole book. The shifting perspectives of the character add a nice depth to the story and means that you can feel the growing panic of the invasion from a variety of different angles. There's a definite direction the story moves in and you find yourself wondering how and when they will achieve what they're after. There isn't really any points where I felt the story dipped, or where I felt it dragged on. There was a nice pace and it kept me interested.In terms of character development, I'd say that I would have liked a bit more. There were definite traits and personalities, but I felt the overworld of the story had more attention. Obviously in an epic alien invasion story, this makes sense. But for me, I didn't feel too much for them.Overall, this is definitely one to read for sci-fi fans. The fact that this is entirely self-published is also a definite bonus. I WILL be reading the next as I'm curious to see how the next one pans out. I have to admit, the cliffhanger took me by surprise and I'm interested to see where that goes.Good job guys, keep up the good work!

I can highly recommend this book.It's not really about a potential alien invasion but how a small family group cope with trying to reach their safe place.Although I wasn't keen on a few of the characters it makes sense that we wont like everyone so this made them more realistic.For me it really was a page turner and I don't often say that.I don't understand why some reviewers found it boring - OK some parts were a bit slow but 95% of it was fine.Maybe some readers prefer beat-em-up books with simply lots of action but I liked the character insights even if I don't like some of the people.I agree that it's a shame that the cast has to be disgustingly wealthy but maybe there will be a reason for this in later books and why certain individuals are abducted.I've now started to read the 2nd book and so far it's going well and has some nice unexpected twists.

A thoroughly enjoyable read, with well thought out characters who have believable thoughts and reactions. It's an exciting race against time, and I liked the fact that Book 1 deals primarily with pre-invasion, thus giving enough time to set up the world these characters live in, and their relationships with each other. This will make Book 2 all the more interesting, I reckon, because any 'weird sh*t' that goes down is set against the backdrop of our world's reality.Couple of clunky bits (but in no way did they detract from the enjoyment): Raj seems quite underwritten, and we have very little sense of his loss regarding his family.Meyer, being the head of a multi-media corporation, should have had some interaction with his underlings/PA/lawyers/right hand person when he was getting the hell out of NYC. It felt like the authors didn't want to think about it - and to be fair, it could detract and distract from the focal points, but I think just a small nod to Meyer's empire would have been good at the beginning, to anchor the reality.

I read this with high hopes, I have enjoyed Sean Platt's previous work and the subject matter (imminent Alien invasion) is one that intrigues me. Unfortunately it did not meet my high hopes and although the story was interesting enough, I couldn't quite connect with the characters and I didn't particularly enjoy the way the book ended, to the extent that I haven't purchased the next installment. It certainly isn't a bad book, and if you can pick it up on the cheap then it might be worth a punt and would fill a few hours, I don't regret trying the series out, it may well have hooked me and I'm sure it will hook others, it just didn't quite hit the sweet spot of imminent apocalyptic drama that I was hoping for.

This story is about a man and his family trying to escape to a safe place. Meyor is a man who likes to be in control, of everything! He knows that he has to have somewhere safe and secure to protect his family, and over the years he has the money and the drive to do this. Then the day comes, alien spaceships are spotted heading to earth. Five days before they arrive, this story follows the journey they make amidst growing panic and traffic jams going nowhere, violent desperate people descending into chaos and riots. I was captured from the first page of this book and could not stop reading to have meals and other mundane tasks

Brilliant story, with an ending that means the next book is a MUST! Well worth getting this - couldn’t put it down. The family’s struggles to get to where they’d be safe; the ‘philosophical’ aspect - if that’s the correct word - then the twist at the end.......definitely a page turner.