Scott Sigler - Contagious

Across America. a mysterious pathogen transforms ordinary people into raging killers, psychopaths driven by a terrifying, alien agenda. The human race fights back, yet after every battle the disease responds, adapts, using sophisticated strategies and brilliant ruses to fool its pursuers. The only possible explanation: the epidemic is driven not by evolution but some malevolent intelligence.
Standing against this unimaginable threat is a small group, assembled under the strictest secrecy. Their best weapon is hulking former football star Perry Dawsey, left psychologically shattered by is own struggles with this terrible enemy, who possesses an unexplainable ability to locate the disease's hosts. Violent and unpredictable, Perry is both the nation's best hope and a terrifying liability.
Hardened CIA veteran Dew Phillips must somehow forge a connection with him if they're going to stand a chance against this maddeningly adaptable opponent. Alongside them is Margaret Montoya, a brilliant epidemiologist who fights for a cure even as she reels under the weight of endless horrors.
These three and their team have kept humanity in the game, but that's not good enough anymore, not even when the disease turns contagious, triggering a fast countdown to Armageddon. Meanwhile other enemies join the battle, and a new threat - one that comes from a most unexpected source - may ultimately prove the most dangerous of all.

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4 months have passed since the triangle virus was first detected. Since then the life of Margaret Montoya, who became the leading epidemiologist, has changed. She travels in a mobile, following the CIA agents Dew Phillips who desperately tries to keep Perry Dawsey from killing triangle host. Physically recovered from his injuries the former football star's infection and bravery to fight it by all means, has left him with the ability to track the living hosts and kill them. Out of control Perry Dawsey needs Dew to help him understand how important it is to capture a living host to study the virus and develop a cure and also to locate the gates the hosts brood is trying to build.
Meanwhile the vector, an orbital hoovering undetected in the air releases a second kind of seed that infects humans, turning them into something else, even worse: protectors.
Under them is little Chelsea, a small child who adapts to the virus in the most promising ways. Chelsea is powerful and her goal clear: protect the hosts so that their brood hatches and can build the gate undisturbed by humans. When the orbital fails it is up to Chelsea to keep blocking out Perry from receiving any information about their whereabouts.

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If asked if the book is good I'd say yes and no. I've had major troubles to get into the plot and it dragged quite a few times but when it peeked I was floored by the writers imagination.
I didn't like the role of the little angel like girl with gold locks thinking she'd communicate with God a bit too cliché-ish. If it was supposed to be frightening I pretty much failed for me. I couldn't imagine that girl being the pure infected evil it was supposed to be. Also very much cliché is Montoya's struggle to understand that sometimes people have to die for the greater good, especially when humanities survival is in the loop. It was very much annoying to me.
The ending unfortunately utterly predictable.

Last but not least the editor should be fired. It is one thing to oversee a spelling mistake, which certainly are quite a lot in the book, but missing whole letters is a bad thing for the readers eye.

Rating:
Visit Scott Sigler.

Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Crown (December 30, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307406318
ISBN-13: 978-0307406316

Scott Sigler - Infected

Across America a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families.

Working under the government's shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind these deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common -- they have been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey -- a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey -- awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices ... he is infected.

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

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Who doesn't remember Sinatra's song I've got you under my skin (I've got you deep in the heart of me.So deep in my heart, that you're really a part of me).
Something similar feels Perry Dawson when he develops first a rash and later triangle shaped growths with eyes. It gets worse when he hears voices in his head and these voices begin to communicate with him, demanding and wanting to be fed. Struggling with the voices that become a part of him he tries his best to withstand their demands but he gets weaker with each passing hour.

Dew Philipps has sworn revenge to the person responsible for the death of his much younger partner. The person who killed his partner is dead but was infected with something the CIA and the leading epidemiologist Margaret Montoya don't know much about. They know the infected humans have turned into paranoid killing machines but their dead bodies always decompose faster as the remains can be gathered or processed for further examination. They need a live example to learn the secret about this disease if it is one and feel their wishes fulfilled when Perry sends an email to a website set up by the CIA to find more infected humans.

No one knows yet that the seeds fell from heaven, and invaded human bodies across America. That these humans have become hosts to something so finely engineered that the seeds slowly overwrite the human DNA and create something foreign to make the bodies their own incubator.

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It took me a bit to get into the story and the writers style but I got largely excited how the story around Perry Dawson unfolded and how precise Scott Sigler described what happened to Perry and how he tried to get rid of the triangles on his body.
The reality of what happens in this novel is scary, the used science even more scarier.
I was able to put myself into Perry's character so easily, first for feeling sympathy when he began scratching himself (who hasn't had a rash in his life ?) and later acted to the voices demands in his head.

Sigler is a new author for me and I can't wait to read the continuation of Infected, named Contagious. Worthwhile when you enjoy science fiction and aren't afraid of developing a rash.

Also it needs to be mentioned that the title of certain chapters were just hilarious. :-)

Sigler offers his books as podcasts free on his website or you can also visit randomhouse and listen to the whole book online.

Rating:
Visit Scott Sigler.

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Crown (April 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307406105
ISBN-13: 978-0307406101