From the creators of the cosmic horror movie Daniel Isn’t Real, Brian DeLeeuw and Adam Egypt Mortimer, comes INVADER, an upcoming sci-fi novel with a very unique twist.
Described as “a horrifying and thought-provoking vision of what it feels like to invade the Earth,” INVADER is a deluxe, full-color, illustrated novel about an alien invasion — told from the alien’s point of view! “In a style that’s one part Stephen King, one part David Cronenberg, and one part shattering family drama, INVADER‘s gripping text is magnified by twenty full-color illustrations by acclaimed comic book artist Jock (Wytches, The Losers, Batman: The Black Mirror).”
The team explains, “DeLeeuw and Mortimer worked together for several years developing the story of an alien invasion using this unique point of view.”
“I love Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” said Mortimer. “All the versions. But what’s always interested me, and what I think has focused most of the work that I’ve done, and that Brian has done, is to think about what it feels like to be the monster — or so-called monster — in the story. The idea of a species of creatures so abjectly alien to our planet, coming here and colonizing not out of maliciousness but because of the need to survive — that idea inspired us and we worked for quite a while to figure out the most interesting way to express that complicated and deeply emotional point of view in a way that could be both empathetic and insanely scary.”
Here’s the full official synopsis…
A meteor carrying liquid-crystal alien organisms crashes into the California desert. Desperate to survive these harsh conditions, the aliens soon begin husking and copying bodies — a cat, a coyote, an old man dying of cancer, a young woman deep into a mushroom trip, and Paige, an officer with the Bureau of Land Management.
The aliens are part of an ancient hive mind — the SisterMind — drifting through space from planet to planet, where they replicate, reproduce, and colonize, gutting each planet of its resources before leaving to do it all over again. This is their plan for our Earth as well…
But when alien Paige finds herself with a human mind and emotions and family in all of their complexities, she resists the plan — leading to a war between different SisterMind factions led by a sinister corporate CEO and a young, psychedelic cult leader in the desert.
A brain-melting mix of body-horror, philosophical sci-fi, and high-octane thriller, INVADER asks — is the terrifying miracle of human consciousness enough to stop an alien invasion?
The book will be available in this oversized format exclusively for pre-order on Kickstarter for 30 days from July 16th to August 14th, along with an ultra-limited edition poster by Jock. Book design is by Jason Jones, formerly of Mondo, creating an exquisite piece of narrative art. Published in collaboration with NeoText.
“Part Starman, part Body Snatchers, part Under the Skin, this is sci-fi horror with gasoline in its veins, a bloody but moving study of humanhood by the aliens that might replace us. Smart, fast, funny, tragic, and a hundred other things too,” raves Daniel Kraus, New York Times bestselling author of Whalefall and The Shape of Water.
“The story is cinematic, scary, sagacious. It’s incredible to me that the best book I’ve read on being human has come in the form of an alien invasion,” says Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Daphne.