HarperTeen, 432 pp.
Published July 24, 2018
DISCLAIMER: I received a free physical ARC of this title from the publisher for review consideration. This did not inform or influence my opinion in any way.
After receiving a distress call from a drill team on a distant planet, a skeleton crew is sent into deep space to perform a standard search-and-rescue mission.
When they arrive, they find the planet littered with the remains of the project—including its members’ dead bodies. As they try to piece together what could have possibly decimated an entire project, they discover that some things are best left buried—and some monsters are only too ready to awaken.
More than the cliffhanger ending gives away Contagion as the first entry in a new series. With a sprawling interstellar alliance that doesn't always inspire contentment in its citizens, there's quite a lot of world-building to get through in the opening chapters. One half of the alliance—a planetary system called the Trios—supplies corrarium, an essential energy source. The other half, called the Cradle, essentially functions as an upper-class consumer society dependent on corrarium for their comfortable lifestyle. This imbalance has fed an underground sentiment towards rebellion in the Trios, yet the only explanation comes in the form of a lecture from one of the members of the rescue crew.
Speaking of the rescue crew, most are very thinly developed. Given the horror aspect it's inevitable that several won't survive the first book, although it would be nice if we were given more of a reason to care when they die. There is also a reasonable amount of setting up to get through before the plot's survival aspect kicks into gear, which leaves readers stranded in the first section of the novel with unknowable or unlikable characters and very little tension.
Bowman does write scares and thrills quite well, so once the mysterious infection is unleashed issues with development and pacing fade into the background. Contagion delivers on some key sci-fi/horror elements while neglecting some important storytelling basics. Your enjoyment will likely depend on how essential you find certain aspects like these:
CREEPY ATMOSPHERE
One of Contagion's strongest assets is its setting. An abandoned base with bloody footprints, red smears on the walls, and no sign of any bodies makes for a veritable haunted house in outer space. Frigid temperatures and toxic air keep everyone isolated in their environmental suits, dwarfed by the machinery and engineering required to help humans survive on an alien planet. While inserting jump scares into a written story can be difficult, Bowman plays with the threat of them around every corner and down every darkened stairwell. This macabre sensibility is an enticing precursor to the impending terror.
THREATENING 'VILLAIN'
That the titular contagion exists is frightening enough. Stranded far from home, with no backup, and battling a foe you don't understand sounds perfectly scary to me. But the infection that beset Black Quarry and now threatens those sent to rescue its staff takes a turn into something more sinister than death. While no one is immune from infection, the organism does affect hosts in different ways. Crew members discover these symptoms as they present in a terrifying cascade of "show not tell" storytelling. While the descriptions fall short of truly brutal, there's enough blood and viscera smeared around to earn Contagion a genuine horror designation.
BREAKNECK PACING
The first quarter or so of the book moves slowly. Bowman is trying to introduce several POV characters and multiple layers of backstory, predominantly through rote exposition. Once this narrative housekeeping wraps up and the threat of infection presents itself, Contagion finally starts to feel like the story I expected. The inhospitable environment on Achlys prevents characters from pausing to evaluate any wounds or setbacks; symptoms with rapid onset force hasty decisions and often back the rescue crew into corners with no easy escape. They cover a lot of ground in the twelve hours spent on the distant planet: their own transport, the Black Quarry base of operations, a drilling site, and an abandoned bunker serve as major set pieces for the action with no small amount of running between them. It's a sharp contrast to the beginning of the novel as revelations come on the heels of one another, even if you do see some of them coming.
SOME CHARACTERS ARE VEHICLES, NOT PEOPLE
Whether it's background on the tensions between the Cradle and the Trios, an impetus to move from one area of the base to another, or foreshadowing future calamities, several of the rescue crew members lack depth beyond their role as a cog in the larger plot. After filling the others in on an underground resistance movement or dragging them from one threat to another, they recede into the background with their singular defining trait until called upon as the next victim. This was a major sticking point for me and, had the action not ratcheted up considerably in the second half of the book, might have kept me from finishing.
Contagion definitely commits some of my personal no-no's in storytelling. It has a limited cast of characters and several of them don't get more than the barest outline of a personality. The beginning chapters are a veritable flood of information; coupled with the use of multiple POVs for under-developed characters, it takes a while to get oriented. However, once they arrive on Achlys and all of the set dressing gets put aside for a non-stop struggle for survival, I forgot how annoyed I was in those first pages. The few characters remaining at the end of Contagion should have plenty of room to grow and develop in its sequel, which I intend on reading. There's an interesting conflict brewing throughout the novel; I only wish it had been presented a little more elegantly.
RATING:
No comments:
Post a Comment