Invasion

“It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.” – Bob Dylan

In the case of William Meikle’s (The Amulet) Invasion, it’s more of a green rain (or snow), but it is pretty hard on those on whom it falls anyway.

On a winter day in the Canadian Maritimes, a strange snow starts to fall. It is green, for one thing, but more ominously, has an acidic effect on anything living on which it falls. People, dogs, plants, all are dissolved by contact with the eerie precipitation. The only people who survive are those who have immediate access to shelter, and the phenomenon is not localized, but is spread all over the east coast, and elsewhere in the world. Civilization begins to collapse under the onslaught, and it gets worse. Alien organisms begin to grow in the biological sludge left behind, and the survivors soon learn this is the precursor to a full-fledged alien invasion.

The story follows Alice, a biologist who gives some of the scientific exposition for the benefit of the readers and John Hiscock (I realize this is a real name of a real person, but I could hear Beavis and Butthead going “heh, heh” in my head every time I read it.), a survivalist and unlikely hero. Alice has a psychic ability to resist the invaders. They manage to find each other and join the military in a desperate attempt to stop the onslaught.

The whole thing has a 50s sci-fi movie feel, and the obvious point of reference is John Wyndham’s classic sci-fi disaster novel The Day of the Triffids, the most famous alien plant invasion story. The author does a good job of keeping the action moving. I could quibble about some minor details that are wrong, mostly military related (no one in the American military, Army or Navy, has held five star rank since Omar Bradley died, for instance) but I won’t. Although I guess I just did. There does seem to be too much story for the relatively short length (it’s more a novella than a full novel) and both Alice’s powers and the appearance of the professor are a bit deus ex machina.

The good far outweighs the minor problems, however. This is meant to be a fast-paced action piece, and I enjoyed it. It isn’t the deep sort of thing you read to reveal some existential truth about your life, but how often do you want to read something like that anyway? Invasion is available as an e-book or as an archaic tree-killing print edition.
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The Amulet

The modern versions of two genres I love, the private detective story and the horror tale, trace many of their standard tropes back to a common birthplace, the pulp fiction outlets of the 1930s. While H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Seabury Quinn were providing the template for fright fare to come in Weird Tales, Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammet and others were creating the hard-boiled detective in Black Mask. It seems very natural, therefore, that there would be attempts to merge the two. One of the latest, and one of the best, is William Meikle’s recently launched Midnight Eye series. The Amulet is the first in this series.

Derek Adams is a private eye in Glasgow, Scotland (Meikle is a Scotsman transplanted to Canada) with all the hallmarks of a classic private eye. He’s somewhat sick of the world, has a love-hate relationship with the city in which he lives, a penchant for one-liners, and a certain code of honor that doesn’t allows coincide with the law. One day, a beautiful dame comes into his office. She wants Derek to track down a lost family heirloom. A routine case, except this heirloom, the titular amulet, has mystic powers to reach beyond our reality, and the stars are coming into alignment to allow someone with the amulet and the will and knowledge to use it to open a gateway and allow the Old Ones to return to earth. This would be good for the Old Ones, not so good for the rest of us.

Meikle has done a good job with something any writer attempting a classic PI story must do: make the city in which it is set a vital character. Glasgow lives, in all its beauty and ugliness, in this book. The writer flows well, and the story is kept concise and lean. It is easy to read in one or two sittings. His PI character fits well into the pantheon of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, while the eldritch elements of the plot would do Lovecraft proud. I ordered the second book in the series, The Sirens, when I was about halfway through this one, and I certainly hope Mr. Meikle continues with the adventures of Derek Adams.

Thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommended.
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