Invasive

A Novel

By: Chuck Wendig

Narrated by: Xe Sands

“Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride. Another rip-roaring, deeply paranoid thriller about the reasons to fear the future.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Hannah Stander is a consultant for the FBI—a futurist who helps the Agency with cases that feature demonstrations of bleeding-edge technology. It’s her job to help them identify unforeseen threats: hackers, AIs, genetic modification, anything that in the wrong hands could harm the homeland.

Hannah is in an airport, waiting to board a flight home to see her family, when she receives a call from Agent Hollis Copper. “I’ve got a cabin full of over a thousand dead bodies,” he tells her. Whether those bodies are all human, he doesn’t say.

What Hannah finds is a horrifying murder that points to the impossible—someone weaponizing the natural world in a most unnatural way. Discovering who—and why—will take her on a terrifying chase from the Arizona deserts to the secret island laboratory of a billionaire inventor/philanthropist. Hannah knows there are a million ways the world can end, but she just might be facing one she could never have predicted—a new threat both ancient and cutting-edge that could wipe humanity off the earth.

Narrator ruined the story.

The story was good, however, narration was terrible. There’s never any excitement in her voice. She spoke in a low mono tone cadence. All character voices sounded the same, and many of her sentences ended in a whisper. All in all, she sounded like someone reading a bedtime story to a three-year-old who was falling asleep herself.

Good Story, So-So Narration

Chuck Wendig delivers as always. Interesting story, not quite the same as all those other tech-gone-wrong plots. Inventive, and he keeps the humans the real monsters - because aren’t they always?

The narrator isn’t awful, but when she reads men, she makes them all sound the same - with the exception of one character with an accent. Making your voice a bit lower in pitch and creaky doesn’t make one sound more masculine; it just makes the listener fight the urge to constantly clear their throat.

interesting and atmospheric

my first of this authors books, an interesting perspective on the science of genetic manipulation and it's bearing on the future. protagonist is well sculpted and it's easy to care about the her outcome. the resolution is satisfying and has the feel of cold reality. recommended!

Not bad!

The author’s lefty politics leech into this book as well. If that doesn’t bother you, it’s a great book. Very visual while listening. He’s a great author and his books flow very well.

Predictable

Decent story but it was very predictable. My biggest issue is the reader. Her male voices were awful, older people sounded near death or what an old Texan sounded like. Her Icelandic accent sounded middle eastern. Made the story hard to follow at times.