Book #44–Swarm

I read a few other books by Larson, and when I saw a new series, I decided to give it a try. I grabbed a sample of Swarm, but didn’t finish it before I just bought the book.

It’s a sci-fi adventure, one of those “how does an ordinary man react” features. A professor is in bed and sees a UFO over his house. It’s massive, and it grabs one of his kids, pulling him inside. A few minutes later the kid is ejected, dead as he hits the ground. The professor, Kyle Riggs, sees the same result with his second kid. What a horrible way to start a book.

Riggs is pulled in and realizes he’s in a test when he kills an alien and the ship provides him with more challenges. Eventually he completes them and he has command of the ship. Limited command, but command. The book proceeds as Riggs learns that 700 of these ships are over the US, some with command personnel and some without, still grabbing people and testing them.

It’s an amazing story, one where we follow Riggs’ journey as he must learn to deal with the ship, with the other ship captains, with the governments of the US, and yes, more aliens. Other aliens are attacking Earth, and this is quite the story of how we end up at war with aliens.

The second book is even more amazing and disturbing.