Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Invasion
Fiction Series
For ages 10 to 13
Thomas Nelson, 2011 ISBN: 978-1595547538
Colt McAlister has had a great summer, and soon he will have to go back to school. After a rather hair-raising surfing session on his last free Friday, Colt has a quiet evening at home alone. His parents are out, and Colt assumes that they are having dinner in their favorite restaurant. He is therefore surprised when he woken up by the sound of the door bell ringing. Colt opens the door, and a policeman informs the sixteen year old boy that both his parents were killed when their car was in a head-on collision. Colt’s life is suddenly and irrevocable changed.
After his parent’s funeral, Colt moves to Arizona to live with his grandfather. His childhood friend Danielle lives in the same town, and she does her best to help Colt adjust to his new home. Colt soon makes friends with a boy called Oz, who is funny and who also seems to be “hiding something.”
Colt is just beginning to come to terms with all the changes in his life when he gets a call from someone who tells him that Colt’s mother was writing a story about a company and that she was assassinated before she could go public. Later that day, a car arrives at Colt’s house and he is taken to an airport where he meets a research scientist called Albert Van Cleve. Van Cleve works for Trident Biotech, a huge company that makes, among other things, biochips. Apparently, some of their chips were installed in the brains of patients who suffer from a variety of illnesses, ostensibly to help them, but in reality the chips are being used by Trident to control the minds of the patients. Colt’s mother found this out, which is why she was eliminated.
While Colt is talking to Van Cleve, a group of trident assassins attacks them, and as a result, Colt discovers that things are not at all what they seem. Apparently, there is an organization called C.H.A.O.S whose job it is to protect Earth from aliens, and Trident is actually run by members of an alien species that wants to wipe out all humans. Colt discovers that the members of his family have a long history of service in C.H.A.O.S, and that everything he holds dear is in grave danger.
This is the first book in what promises to be a very exciting new series. Readers who like to read about aliens, futuristic technology, and space travel are sure to enjoy this story.
