Reader discussion: The Invasion

Public reader discussion about The Invasion in the WeRead Catalog by William Le Queux.

'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy is an excellent military thriller and might be his best work

By notebookPencil

After slogging through a bunch of heavy, complicated classics, I wanted something way more light and entertaining. I used to be a huge Tom Clancy fan when I was younger—basically ate up the early Jack Ryan / John Clark books. But he kind of fell off for me after Rainbow Six. Still, I’ve always had good memories of that late 80s/early 90s era. Red Storm Rising, though, is one I never actually got around to. Back in my Clancy days I was mainly locked in on the Jack Ryan stuff, so it slid by. I finally grabbed a used copy at a thrift store and figured, why not? Yeah… I’ve been sleeping on this one. I read it over about a week and now I’m thinking it might be his best, along with Without Remorse. It really nails what Clancy does best: the super detailed, realistic “what would happen in a real military scenario” kind of stuff. Even though it’s obviously set in the 80s and involves the USSR, it still feels exciting. A lot of that is because the logistics and technical side is so thoroughly researched, and also because, y’know, recent world events have Russia acting like a jerk toward neighboring countries. It’s a big, chunky book, but it moves pretty smoothly. The action set pieces are great too—those have always been his thing, and they’re probably at their best here. That said, Clancy is still Clancy. The writing is pretty plain, and the characters don’t exactly jump off the page—they’re mostly there to get the plot moving. The dialogue is pretty bare-bones and usually just people talking about what’s happening (or about to happen) in the middle of the action. But I don’t think anyone picks up Clancy for “high art” or deep literary brilliance. The one nice thing is that it came before he went full late-90s right-wing “rah-rah America” mode, so politically it doesn’t feel gross. Anyway, if you go in expecting a super well-researched War World III type scenario with a ton of action and detail, it’s honestly a damn good read.

Searching for an alien invasion book mil sci-fi where the humans are willing to fight dirty.

By storyAnchor

I’m basically trying to find a military sci-fi book with an alien invasion, where the humans (the ones on the “good” side) are still willing to go full brutal to beat the aliens back. Like, when I say fighting dirty, I mean they’re not holding themselves back—chemical, biological, or even nuclear stuff being used with zero regard for the Geneva rules, because yeah, it’s a terrible idea… but it’s on a human planet and the aliens are trying to wipe everyone out. Edit: I only want invasions where humans can actually reach alien worlds with space travel and fight back, not just being stuck on Earth getting steamrolled by space ships. This is mostly getting tired though, the whole “humans are the good guys so they would never bomb alien civilian cities or use chemical weapons or do anything shady to prisoners” vibe. When the other side’s goal is extermination of the human race, it feels kind of unrealistic and boring. Edit 2: Like, take Halo as the example—there’s that Covenant prisoner stuff where they do “enhanced interrogation” to figure out weaknesses, and then they end up using chemical weapons effectively on a big scale, not caring about non-combatants. Or the UNSC finding a defenseless Covenant world and nuking it to make it uninhabitable, because the Covenant did the same thing to human worlds. That’s the kind of “dirty” I mean—targeting civilians is fair game here, not stuff like insurgencies or irregular fighting that tries not to hit non-combatants.

Historical Fiction - Indigenous

By mercy-song

I’m trying to find some historical fiction where Indigenous people are actually the main characters, not just a sidekick to a white guy. Canada would be ideal, but I’m open to other places too. Thanks!

[Review] The Invasion Story - From Chensey to H. G. Wells to P. G. Wodehouse

By DMole

WOLVERINES! If that line means anything to you, then yeah, you know the invasion story kind of thing. Red Dawn is probably the one everyone thinks of, but it goes back a lot farther than that. Way farther than I expected, anyway. It can be traced back to the 1790s, but it really seems to kick into gear with The Battle of Dorking from 1871, by George Tomkyns Chesney. It’s told later on by a Royal Engineers guy looking back fifty years, and he’s basically moaning about how England got itself into a position where Germany could be a serious threat, even though they’re not named straight out. The enemy is speaking German, though. After all the build-up, the Royal Navy gets wiped out by some mysterious super weapon, probably torpedo-ish, and then they land in Essex. England scrambles together whatever it can from the public and heads out near Dorking, where they get thoroughly beaten. Chesney was apparently really worried about England’s situation, and wrote it after his letters and journalism didn’t really get through to anyone. The odd part is that it did make an impact, just mostly as entertainment and not as a warning. A ton of these books got churned out before WWI. And it wasn’t just an England thing either. Invasion stories were popular everywhere, and William Le Queux seems to have known exactly how to ride that wave. He was already writing a lot of them, and then he smartly changed the ending of his biggest one, The Invasion of 1910, depending on where it was being published. There were tons of copies, but it wasn’t all just repeats. The genre also branched into sci-fi, and the most famous one is probably H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds from 1898. Nowadays people usually look at that as important for science fiction, but I think it’s also pretty interesting that it came out of the invasion craze of the time. It probably wouldn’t exist if that stuff wasn’t already so popular. What makes The War of the Worlds still work is how Wells imagined the aliens and tied it into a normal invasion story so well. If they’d just been Germans with a better giant tank, it might still have worked, but he does so much more. He gives little hints about how they look, how they think, and how their tech works, even with people trying to figure out their weapons afterward. You can’t help picturing what happens next in that world. And yeah, once a genre gets big, parody shows up pretty fast. That’s where P.G. Wodehouse’s The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England (1909) comes in. England isn’t just invaded by Germany here, but also Russia, Turkey, Monaco, Morocco, Somaliland, China, the Swiss Navy (?!), and a made-up group of savage natives in war canoes, all at once. It plays off the usual idea that England is totally unprepared, except the last defense left is the Boy Scouts. Most people barely even notice the invasion and are more focused on cricket scores. And once they do notice, they start betting on which country will get to London first. And honestly, the fall of London is usually the big moment in these stories, so I’ll spoil one tiny bit from The Swoop! by just quoting the whole chapter title part: Chapter 6: The Bombardment of London Thus was London bombarded. Fortunately it was August, and there was nobody in town. Otherwise there might have been a loss of life. Wodehouse makes basically the whole invasion ridiculous and funny. I feel like Douglas Adams would’ve done something similar. There’s a little bit of not-great old language in it, the kind people would probably complain about in Mark Twain too, but not enough to really put off anyone who likes English humour. The reason invasion fiction works is pretty straightforward: people like stories that play on fear, and if it feels believable, that makes it hit harder. New battlefield tech is a big part of that too. Back in the 1790s, hot-air balloons were the scary new thing for moving troops around. Then in the 1870s, when the Prussians used breech-loading artillery and railroads against the French, that whole fear of a stronger invader got fired up again. Now the idea of a first-world country getting invaded feels kind of far-fetched, I guess — North Korea invading America? No wonder the Red Dawn remake didn’t do well — so a lot of that energy went into FPS games instead, where reality doesn’t matter much. But the basic fears are still around, just in different forms. These days it’s more terrorism, government conspiracies, hacking, stuff like that, taking the place of the old overwhelming-force invasion stories. Still, it feels like the same urge underneath, so I’d say the genre is still there, just with different players.

Good Alien Invasion Novels?

By badgerpages1987

Can anyone recommend some good alien invasion novels? I’m looking for something that feels like it could happen in real life—people suddenly getting hit with an overwhelming alien presence that’s maybe totally incomprehensible. I usually like stories where everyday life gets ripped apart by something strange and unknown, but now that I think about it, I haven’t read many actual alien invasion books. The only ones I can really name are The War of the Worlds and… I guess Spin?

Revisiting The Tomorrow Series

By DustyValley

I recently went back through the Tomorrow books for the first time in like 15 years too, and I still mostly like them a lot. The characters are probably the strongest part for me — even with the kind of cheesy teen drama stuff, they feel pretty real and easy to care about. Marsden does a good job making all the fear, romance, hope, and horrible stuff feel like it all belongs in the same story. But yeah, the invasion plot is definitely the weakest bit. I wouldn’t say the books are just racist or anything like that, but the whole foreign invader angle feels messy and pretty dated now, and it’s weirdly unclear in a lot of places. The only thing that really comes through is that the invaders are Asian, which is uncomfortable given the context. It makes the whole thing harder to take seriously, especially by the end. Honestly I think it would’ve worked better if the enemy was some homegrown fascist group or coup situation instead. That would’ve made the story feel more believable and probably more interesting, too, because the characters would have had to think harder about Australia itself instead of just falling into this simple us vs them mindset. As it is, the character work is good but the plot drags it down. Still, I enjoy these books a lot overall. They’re kind of iconic in an old-school Australian YA way, even if they feel dated now. And the movie was decent too — not as good as the book, a bit rushed, but still fun and well acted. I would’ve watched sequels for sure if they’d made them.

Books based on the invasion of Earth

By Reed_Novel

I’m trying to find some more novels where Earth gets invaded. I don’t feel like I’ve read that many in this whole theme, so I’m a bit stuck. I just finished the first three books in the Extinction Point series and I liked them a lot. The only other one I can think of that I’ve read is Annihilation, and I enjoyed that too—I even ended up reading it twice, which I almost never do (it’s just shorter). If anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears.

World War Z was so ahead of its time. So worth reading as an adult if you read it as a kid.

By aquapanda

I was poking around my audiobook list and I’d heard WWZ had a full cast, kind of like American Gods. Then I saw the names and I just lost it a bit—Martin Scorsese, Simon Pegg, Nathan Fillion, Henry Rollins?! The voices alone are insanely good. And honestly, even though it’s a bunch of different stories, it still hits hard. What really got me is how the political stuff still feels… weirdly current. Like Russia turning into the “Holy Russian Empire” and basically rolling through Belarus and Ukraine after they deal with the undead? Wild. Plus I liked that they weren’t just doing the same handful of zombie-survivor perspectives—you get stuff from people you don’t normally see, like the blimp guy, the feral woman, the scuba diver, and even the ISS commander. The movie barely covers it, but I did appreciate the Israel/Palestine angle. Still, reading how other places were already seeing it coming and trying to warn everyone, and then only a handful actually taking it seriously—yeah, that part landed way too close to home. The Chinese government trying to clamp down secretly, even if it costs their own people—does that sound familiar after 2021? It’s obviously based on SARS, but it totally hits different now. And the whole con man stuff—using fear to strong-arm people and push “solutions” that are just scams—also feels grimly familiar. I know Max Brooks isn’t predicting the future or anything, but man… credit where it’s due. Also, it’s not just “research,” it feels like he goes deep. Most authors probably spend time on like one or two worlds, but the Chinese submarine section is basically its own little book. Every character feels like they actually know their field. Like Mark Hamill as Todd—so believable, and seriously, narrated by the GOAT. And Todd gets like three big chapters too, which was a great call. Every time I hear “The Trooper,” my brain immediately goes to that Raj Singh square-stacking thing. If you read it when you were a teen, I think it’s worth coming back to. I pulled my old copy back out and I might try to track him down for a signature. Any other books that are done in that interview style? I love it—so easy to grab a chapter and actually feel like you got something done even when you’re busy.

What's a good list of alien invasion books?

By AmatriceBookmark

I’ve basically always been into alien invasion sci-fi, like movies or books or whatever else. Lately I’ve been finding a bunch of really good ones and I’m hoping to pick up more. I just read Spin by Robert Charles Wilson and Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright, and I’m looking for stuff with a similar vibe (Ender’s Game and Old Man’s War are also the kinds of things I like). EDIT: Thanks for the recs! I’m going to try to get through every book you suggested.

Best Alien Invasion books?

By draft_ribbon

I don’t know why, but alien invasion stories are my favorite kind of plot. So far I’ve read Three-Body Problem, and I’m currently working my way through Footfall. I also have War of the Worlds and Childhood’s End on my list. What else should I check out that’s really good?