Review--Contagion by Erin Bowman

Perfect for fans of Madeleine Roux, Jonathan Maberry, and horror films like 28 Days Later and Resident Evil, this pulse-pounding, hair-raising, utterly terrifying novel is the first in a duology from the critically acclaimed author of the Taken trilogy.

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.

I finally picked up Erin Bowman's Contagion, just in time to have the followup, Immunity at the ready! This book was a hot topic last year as it was said to be an edge of your seat kind of thriller where the characters are basically lost in space on a secret rescue mission with no backup present and the planet come to seems to be uninhabited...by the living, there are plenty of dead bodies about though. The mystery element runs strong in this one as we basically have no clue what happened and if it's even safe to be here! Needless to say, this was a page-turner! 

The story starts off with a group of people going off on a mission to attend to a distress call that came from the Black Quarry ship that was on another planet. Their captain leading them is a young woman by the name of Devlin who has ulterior motives for wanting to go on this mission, then there's their pilot Nova who has been banned from being a professional military pilot because of a vision issue, Thea, who's a young intern for Dr. Lisbeth Tarlow, a skittish older woman who has serious doubts about going to this distant planet, and then of course a few others who I can't quite remember because, well, you can take a guess or two!

When the team lands on the planet it's to see isolation and dead bodies, lots of dead bodies. Near one of these bodies is a message, written in blood that says not trust the kid, that he was a killer. Though for the longest time we see no one who even remotely looks alive. Devlin has the idea that they should try to study one of the corpses to see what might have killed them and that's when things start to get interesting.

The story was told through many points of view, not through all of this crew's eyes, but most of them. There's also a mystery segment that happens before every chapter where we see through the eyes of someone or something. It's hard to say so early on in the story, but whatever it is, it's watching the crew as they stumble along the ship.

I will admit, I was expecting a story that was a little more terrifying. Granted, this one was pretty eerie. It's the whole mystery of WTF is going on that keeps you going. While the answers take awhile to come about, there's still plenty to keep the story going. It's a story that's rather intense, especially since it all happens within the same day. I'll also admit that there were times that I was rather confused too. This was mostly in part to when the rescue team had sidebar moments to discuss their intergalactic politics and history that played a role in those politics. It was a little discombobulating to try to grasp what they were talking about because I knew it would pop up later, I've come to learn that nothing is ever said without a reason in books!

The story takes plenty of surprising turns. It's set at a pace that has you reading through the late night, which may or may not be a good idea because as I said, this book was pretty eerie! While I wasn't all out terrified like I had hoped, it was still pretty damn creepy! I mean I'm not going to say that zombies are involved in this story, but it's pretty close! Lol.

The ending was a real trip though! I had started making some guesses as to what was happening and what might happen. I foresaw some of the things and it definitely ends with a rather dicey cliffhanger that made me glad I waited to read this one! Can't wait to pick up the sequel next! If you're looking for that read that will keep you up late in to the night by part fear, part thrill, and part need to know answers, then Contagion is the read for you!



Overall Rating 4/5 stars