A Review of Scott Sigler's "Infected"

Scott Sigler has had an interesting career as a writer. He has had the kind of career that makes a lot of us trying to make names for ourselves in the literary world smack our heads and wish we had thought of the method that he had. However, we didn't and that is much to our embarrassment.

Sigler started out by writing his books and then trying to get then published in the standard way. However, when that didn't exactly pan out he started reading his books and creating MP3s of them. He gave them away at first, allowing people to download his podcasts of his books and the, when they became popular, he sold his podcats on places like iTunes. When he started selling something like 30,000 podcasts for each chapter of his book, he finally got the attention of the standard print publisher and he got himself a publishing deal.

Scott Sigler deals in horror and he deals in sci-fi. He has a wit about him and his tales are infused with a truly sick sense of humor. He also loves to gross people out, so while they are laughing, they are doing so in order that they not get sick and lose their lunches on their shoes. This is very true of his novel "Infected."

This novel starts out with a premise that is almost as old as science fiction itself. Spores that travel thousands upon thousands of light years slowly fall to earth. Then they land on humans they start to grown, entering the bloodstream and slowly forming into aliens. The humans first know something is wrong when they begin to develop itchy rashes. Those rashes soon turn into bright blue triangles and then they start hearing the voices in their heads. As the aliens grow within them, they gain greater and greater control over their human hosts, but their human hosts start to lose control of their minds. Across the country, suddenly, and without warning, seemingly ordinary and unconnected people are going bonkers, murdering their families and then killing themselves in the process. Then, as the government and doctors try to autopsy them their bodies turn into goo, wash down the drain, and leave barren skeletons covered with fuzzy green moss.

This is the premise. The idea of aliens who enter humans and take them over has been done before. Some of the most memorable have been the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The thing about Sigler, however, is that he takes this familiar premise and manages to make it seem fresh and exciting and new.

Like Stephen King and some of the best in horror, Sigler is great at creating three-dimensional characters. In this one he has a doctor who is trying to figure out what the disease is that is causing these people go go nuts. Then he has a CIA agent who is trying to stop the disease from spreading. Finally, he has poor Perry Dawsey, the massive ex-football player who wakes up one morning to find his body itching and then hears the voices and sees the triangles and lives a nightmare unlike any in recent fictional history.

It is Dawsey's story that becomes the center of this novel. As he attempts to fight back against the aliens that are trying to control him, you feel his pain, even when the pain is beyond anything you might want to imagine. What he puts his body through is just truly horrific. It is also tinged with that incredible sense of humor, but it will leave you squirming in your seat, yet unable to stop reading and to stop turning the page.

King has never been able to do the sci-fi/horror thing that well, in my opinion. His "Tommyknockers" I felt was a very flawed book that I had real trouble picturing in my mind as I read it. His "Dreamcatcher" also was flawed with aliens I didn't understand and things bursting out of people's bodies for reasons I felt were never adequately explained. Things burst out of bodies in "Infected" as well, but this time they are explained and I understood them and cared about them.

The book reads fast. I can see how this was done as a podcast originally. The chapters are short and quick. The action speeds along and, despite this breakneck pace, Sigler manages to make the characters consistently interesting and worth caring about. He keeps them well rounded as he heaps horror upon horror on them.

If I had one complaint it would be that I felt that the ending had a rushed feel to it. The entire story seems to be building and building toward this thunderous climax, but then it seems to fizzle a bit. The big climactic battle never emerges and is handled within only a couple of pages, which doesn't seem quite enough for the battle that should be there. It is also here that the real sci-fi geek in Sigler comes out along with a slight nod and tip of the hat to older writers of horror, such as H.P. Lovecraft. I understand that there is a sequel to "Infected" and maybe things are stretched out a bit more there.

In the end "Infected" is a worthy and welcome voice into the genre of horror. There have been a lot of writers who people have attempted to hand the mantle of "Master of Horror" from Stephen King and to, but Sigler may actually be worthy of mention. I would definitely rank him among other horror writers such as Clive Barker, Robert McCammon and, yes, Dean Koontz. He can create realistic characters, has that dark sense of humor and then throws them into amazing situations and sees how he can get them out of it. It's a good read, full of great scenes of mind-numbing horror and unbelievably gross outs. It will leave your skin itching, that's for sure, and you have to admire that in a work of fiction.

I do, anyway.