Intro to Alien Invasion by Owen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Lately, a lot of my book reviews have started with these “efforts”, let’s call them. Efforts are the things they’ll ask you to do if you do voiceover for a video game.
“Okay, make a grunt like you’re pulling yourself up on a ledge.”
“Now a yell, like you’re making a really long jump.”
“Now a puzzled hmm, like you’re about to open a shoebox and you don’t realize it’s full of naked pictures of your parents.”
My effort for this book is something like Ehhhh
It started off strong, but when the action sets in, it’s not super exciting or original, and there are times when the art has me confused as to what exactly is happening in the panel.
This also has a classic alien invasion/monster problem, which is that sometimes the aliens are like super strong and if you encounter one, you’re super screwed, and then other times you can beat them up with a folding chair, like a cheap WWE wrestler.
It was like those rolling aliens in the new Star Wars. They’re consuming machines that can’t be stopped, except when they grab the main character, at which point they drag him around and behave totally differently than they have been the whole time.
Maybe there’s some kind of intergalactic treaty that says “We’re aliens, and we kick everyone’s ass, except if you encounter someone who appears to be a ‘main character’ type, take it easy. We love conquering shit, but what we love most is NARRATIVE! Joseph Campbell! The Hero’s Journey!”
Oh, you know what else this book has in it? That whole thing where the perfect girl is dating the biggest chump idiot asshole of all time ever who has no redeeming qualities, is never nice or cool, and I think that story is kinda dumb.