The Invasion (Extended Version) [Kindle Edition]

William Meikle (Author)

Book Description

It started during a winter storm on the North Eastern Seaboard which brought with it a strange green rain. Where it fell, everything withered, died, and was consumed. The residents of remote outposts in Maritime Canada escaped the worst of the early damage, but that was a blessing in disguise, for they were left to watch as first North America, then the world, was subsumed in the creeping green carpet of terror.

And that was just the beginning. New life forms began to arise from the ooze, simple organisms at first, but multiplying with ever-increasing complexity. The few human survivors are faced with a full-scale invasion... and only radical measures will guarantee the survival of the human race.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you're on the fence with this one, then climb down and give it a shot. The Invasion is great 50's B-Movie fun and comes highly recommended." --Horror World

From the Author

The first science fiction I ever encountered was Fireball XL5, one of the early Gerry Anderson productions. I was only about four years old, but I was hooked immediately on spaceships and adventure in the stars. I grew up during the exciting part of the space race, staying up nights to watch space-walks then moon missions, eyes wide in wonder as Armstrong made his small step. At the same time Gerry Anderson had continued to thrill me, with Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. The Americans joined in, with Lost in Space then, as color TV reached Scotland, Star Trek hit me full between the eyes. 

Also at the same time, my reading was gathering pace. I'd started on comics early with Batman and Superman. As the '60s drew to a close, Marvel started to take over my reading habits more, and I made forays into reading novels; Clarke and Asimov at first, and most of the Golden-Age works. By the early Seventies I had graduated to the so-called New Wave, Moorcock, Ellison, Delaney and Zelazny dominating my reading, and they led me on to reading, then writing horror.

I more or less stopped reading Science Fiction round about then, but I never stopped watching, especially after Star Wars gave the visual genre a huge push forward. I re-discovered the '50s classics after the advent of the VCR and quickly built a huge collection of movies, many of which I still watch avidly.

Which brings me, in a long winded manner, to the novella, The Invasion. Invasions, and the resulting carnage, have always loomed big in my favorites of the genre, through War of the Worlds, Earth vs Flying Saucers, the original V series and even the spectacular failure of Independence Day. Neil Jackson asked me if I was interested in writing a four-part serial, and laid out a basic timeline. I ran with it, and soon discovered that I had a story to tell.

To regresss slightly, another part of my early reading, and the one that united my Science Fiction reading with my horror reading, was the works of H P Lovecraft. I realised that the Invasion in my story would have Lovecraftian antecedents, in that it would come from space, and be completely uncaring of the doings of the human race. My training as a biologist also made me realise that aliens should be -really- alien, not just simulcra of pre-existing terrestrial forms. Once I had that in my mind, it didn't take much to come up with a "color out of space" that would engulf the planet.

Most Invasion movies concentrate on the doings in big cities, and with the involvement of the full force of the military. I wanted to focus more on what it would mean for the people. Living as I am in Canada, in a remote Eastern corner, I was able to draw on local knowledge and home in on people already used to surviving in extreme conditions. I just upped the ante.

An interest in conspiracy theories and post-apocalypse survivalists also gave me one of the main characters, and the early parts of the story are a news report from the bunker where he has retreated to ride out whatever is coming. So come with me, to a winter storm in the Maritimes, where a strange green snow is starting to fall.

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Product Details

• File Size: 308 KB
• Print Length: 125 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Generation Next Publications (April 16, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003HS4V8O
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,253 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Feelings August 17, 2010

By Jim Fay

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Rating: 3 1/2

What I liked:

It was fast moving with a lot of action and offered an imaginative approach to a story about an alien invasion. The characters, particularly Alice, were people you cared about.

What I didn't like:

Too short. I thought the story was going to extend all the way until the end. I read this on my Kindle and at about the 60% mark I thought the story was winding down and had been wondering what new twists would be coming, since there was still 40% to go, but then at the 66% marker the book ended. It turns out that the other third of the book were samples of his other book (or books).

Editing. There were a lot of typos. Every time I come across an error it tends to take me out of the story.

Overall it was a pretty good book. If grammatical errors don't bother you, I'd recommend reading it. If errors get under your skin, you might want to pass on this one.

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great story ... but way too many typos August 16, 2010

By W. V. Buckley

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I dislike sounding like the grammar police, but the over-abundance of serious typos in William Meikele's The Invasion made me wonder if the real invaders were aliens or uneducated proofreaders. I know it's hard to catch every single typo in a book, but for heaven's sakes, this one could be used as a teaching tool for English teachers who can hand out treats to their students who find the most errors.

In addition to spelling errors, there are sentences where it's apparent words have been left out. In fact, in one sentence, the word "have" apparently was mispelled as "gave." (I say apparently because it's possible "gave" was the correct word, but then it would mean that a portion of the sentence was missing.)

Another issue I had with the book involve statements that are obviously made by a character, but appear without quotation marks, leaving the reader to wonder if the statement was actually made or was just a thought in a character's head. Also, there's the overuse of italics. Sometimes it apparent that the author is using italics for emphasis; but at others it seems as though the italics appear randomly.

OK, enough with channeling my fifth grade English teacher. The plot of The Invasion made for interesting reading. Meikle is one of those writers who can take an idea that would be at home in a pulp novel or a cheesy '50s-style sci-fi movie and work it into a story that is relevant to today's sci-fi or horror readers. In more than a few spots I was reminded of the classic sci-fi film "Day of the Triffids." While Meikle may pay homage to such earlier classics, he makes The Invasion his own invention.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read May 17, 2010

By L. J. Wright

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Invasion brings a whole new look at alien life and how it could change earth.
Meikle keeps you on edge as you read about an alien life form that drips to earth in a green rain
only to change, change again, adapt and change again to try to overcome life on earth
and steal the planet for themselves. The scary part is that its not so unrealistic that
it could not happen. Meikle writes page turners and once you have read one of his books
you will want to read them all. This would make a great movie!

More About the Author

I'm Willie, a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with fifteen novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries, the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others. My work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and publications.

My current best seller is THE INVASION, a sci-fi alien invasion tale with mass carnage, plucky survivors, and last minute rescues. It has been as high as #2 in the Kindle > science fiction charts. (and #4 in Kindle > horror ). Please check it out.

I've been asked many times why I write what I do. I choose to write mainly at the pulpy end of the market, populating my stories with monsters, myths, men who like a drink and a smoke, and more monsters. People who like this sort of thing like it.

I don't write for the critical acclaim of my peers. I couldn't give a toss what other writers think of me. I'm writing for two reasons... myself and a readership. Posterity, if there is one, can decide on whether it's any good or not. Besides, the harder I work at it making my writing accessible, the more readers I get, so I'm doing something right.

But that's still not why I do it. My pat answer has always been the same. "I like monsters."

But it goes deeper than that.

I write to escape.

I grew up on a West of Scotland council estate in a town where you were either unemployed or working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led hard, miserable lifes of quiet, and sometimes not so quiet desperation. I was relatively lucky in that both my parents worked, but I spent a lot of time alone or at my grandparent's house.

My Granddad was housebound, and a voracious reader. I got the habit from him, and through him I discovered the Pan Books of Horror and Lovecraft, but I also discovered westerns, science fiction, war novels and the likes of Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Alistair MacLean, Dennis Wheatley, Nigel Tranter, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. When you mix all that together with DC Comics, Tarzan, Gerry Anderson and Dr Who then, later on, Hammer and Universal movies on the BBC, you can see how the pulp became embedded in my psyche.

When I was at school these books and my guitar were all that kept me sane in a town that was going downhill fast. The steelworks shut and employment got worse. I -could- have started writing about that, but why bother? All I had to do was walk outside and I'd get it slapped in my face. That horror was all too real.

So I took up my pen and wrote. At first it was song lyrics, designed (mostly unsuccessfully) to get me closer to girls.

I tried my hand at a few short stories but had no confidence in them and hid them away. And that was that for many years.

I didn't get the urge again until I was past thirty and trapped in a very boring job. My home town had continued to stagnate and, unless I wanted to spend my whole life drinking (something I was actively considering at the time), returning there wasn't an option.

As I said before, I write to escape.

My brain needed something, and writing gave it what was required. That point, back nearly twenty years ago, was like switching on an engine, one that has been running steadily ever since.

And most of the time, the things that engine chooses to give me to write are very pulpy.

I think you have to have grown up with pulp to -get- it. A lot of writers have been told that pulp=bad plotting and that you have to have deep psychological insight in your work for it to be valid. They've also been told that pulp=bad writing, and they believe it. Whereas I remember the joy I got from early Moorcock, from Mickey Spillane and further back, A E Merritt and H Rider Haggard. I'd love to have a chance to write a Tarzan, John Carter, Allan Quartermain, Mike Hammer or Conan novel, whereas a lot of writers I know would sniff and turn their noses up at the very thought of it.

I write to escape.

I haven't managed it yet, but I'm working on it