Invasion by Dr. Robin Cook

When one reads a medical thriller written by a Harvard MD such as Dr. Robin Cook, one would expect that the story would be credible and in some ways realistic. Invasion, written in 1997, is neither. True, the book is a science fiction novel, which suggests that perhaps a certain element of fantasy may play a part; however, it is not with the fantasy that I find fault, but with the plot and several concepts of the work.

The story is a mix between the all too common “aliens infiltrated our world millions of years ago and are back from more” and “the population of the world unwittingly turns into zombies before a problem is realized” themes. With several books and movies sharing the themes, such as Cell: A Novel by Stephen King, 28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later and the later created book by Steve Niles, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and later as a movie starring Will Smith, some such as myself might be getting a little worn of the same old song. To give Dr. Cook credit, his book was published in 1997, meaning he can claim that he was one of the first in today’s time to write such a novel. I would give him that credit were his novel a bit more worthy of credit.

The premise of Invasion is simple, though it is made to seem much more convoluted due to Dr. Cook’s authentic use of medical terms. Basically, a race of super intelligent aliens came to Earth millions of years ago to inject a latent virus into the DNA sequence of Earth’s primitive creatures. Every few million years they come back, activating the virus with a protein delivered by a needle hidden in a little black disk. Creatures that are not fit to handle the virus are destroyed (such as the dinosaurs). Creatures who can handle the virus are cured in hours and join a hive-mind that is concerned about the rain forests. The “aliens” are simply the occurrence of the virus in a host, much like the Stephen King novel Dreamcatcher. Throughout the book, those who are too smart to touch these little black disks that sting people who do touch them try to figure out how to kill the virus.

Every few pages, there is an action sequence in which the protagonists run from the zombies, who grow in number and organization. Despite the millions of people who become zombies, including the President and all the members of his cabinet, all of them seem to be able to fit with room to spare into a 5 acre farm where they do work to create an inter-dimensional gateway. And all the while, no one, including the media, notices that everyone seems to be turning into rain-forest saving zombies.

Eventually the protagonists, losing every single lead they have, contact a man over the internet (a magical place where everyone has a screen name that is internet-wide), who turns out to have access to a complete U.S. military virology laboratory. There they find a vaccine very quickly, cure a soon-to-be zombie, and also find that the common cold drives the virus out of the victim in foamy goop from the eyes and mouth. They find a super-cold and drive it to the aforementioned farm, coughing the virus around and running over the bad guy who now looks like an alien. All of which happens in the last 20 pages or so of the novel.

It may sound interesting, but I’d rather you attribute that to my writing skills rather than the book itself. All in all, the “master of the medical thriller” should stick with the medicine and lose the aliens. There were simply too many parts of the book that either made little sense or carried on too long, and the ending seemed like an afterthought where the author got too tired to keep writing about the story.

For a good book mixing a world-wide plague with fantasy thrown in, I’d recommend The Stand: Expanded Edition by Stephen King. If you want to read a book about zombies, try I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It has one of those quick resolution endings as well, but has zombies throughout the entire book.