Contagion

by Erin Bowman

July 24, 2018 · HarperTeen

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I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut, so I decided that I should try something completely different to break my cycle of ennui.

It worked.

First off, Contagion isn’t a romance (as you can probably tell from the cover).

It’s a YA SciFi/Horror novel about a ragtag team sent to investigate a distress call from a drill site on a remote planet.

If you’re like, “Oh hey, I’ve seen this movie. I know how this goes,” you’d be 100% correct.

Also my husband is out of town so it’s just the cats here to help me defend against alien menaces so…

Well, you know what that means.

Anyway, like I said, this book isn’t a romance although it does have a f/f romantic subplot (in space, with monsters, so like…don’t get your hopes super high for a HEA). It is a solid Sci-Fi/Horror offering, although be warned that it ends on a cliffhanger.

The book centers around a group that work for a company called The Hevetz Corporation that mines for an energy-producing element called corrarium. There’s Dylan Lowe, a hot-headed captain who got her position through nepotism; Nova Singh, a pilot disqualified from military service due to an eye condition; Dr. Lisbeth Tarlow, a preeminent microbiologist who has been back-burnered due to advanced age and a tremor; and Thea Sadik, Dr. Tarlow’s seventeen-year-old intern. We also have a few folks filling out the red shirt contingent, but you get the idea.

The group is asked to go to the remote planet of Achlys where a drilling crew at a site named Black Quarry sent out a distress call and then went dark.

Probably just a communications failure, right?

As a side note, while I understand that the name “Black Quarry” is pragmatic and descriptive (they’re drilling in a quarry. Their side of the planet is permanently dark) I feel like things would go a lot better for people in remote sci-fi locations if they named their projects things like “Happy Marshmallow Fun Time Place.” Yeah, it’s a lot to say, but are the space monsters going to attack Happy Marshmallow Fun Time Place? No. They aren’t. They have standards.

Once the team arrives they find everyone dead, except a young man named Coen who has survived in a bunker for two months. What killed the Black Quarry crew? A pathogen? Some kind of alien parasite? Intense instability brought on by environmental conditions? An alien monster?

Whatever it is…

Then, true to genre form, we’ve got the secrets and suspicions that start driving our plucky band to distrust each other. Turns out Dr. Tarlow was on this same planet with her scientist parents when she was a child, and was the only survivor of a storm that killed the rest of the crew. Hmmmm. Remember that survivor they found? Of course you do, I literally mentioned it one paragraph ago. Anyway, Coen doesn’t have a super clear explanation of how he lived for two-months when everyone else died a gruesome death. And why won’t Dylan send a message back to the Hevetz Corporation?

Also it’s perpetually dark, storms are messing with their communications systems, and the lights keep flicking on and off because it’s required in a genre like this. Shitty lighting. It’s space-horror 101.

I did mention that there’s a little bit of a romance here. Nova has a thing for the captain, Dylan, after one drunken post-card-game kiss. Dylan is pretending the whole thing never happened though, which doesn’t stop Nova from pining in her own way:

[Dylan] was a blunt, uptight ass, sure, but she was also effective. She got things done. Nova had worked a site evaluation job in the tropics of Eutheria with Dylan a few months back, now this one on Soter’s polar caps. Dylan’s harsh shell had become a challenge to Nova, a game. Two smiles, she’d tell herself. I bet I can make the uptight ass smile twice today.

After working with Dylan for half a year, Nova’s record was still just a whopping three. With the exception of that night of cards, which Dylan made clear didn’t count.

The relationship between Nova and Dylan is still a very, very small part of this novel so if interest in f/f sci-fi romance is what’s driving you, you might not find Contagion to be what you were looking for.

In terms of actual scariness, I’d say this book is a three on a one-to-five scale. It’s fine for people versant in the genre and, I’d say, for teens. There’s not a ton of gore and the horror-factor comes mostly from “what’s beyond the flickering lights.” I didn’t actually have any issues sleeping after reading it. That said, I consume a lot of creepy shit.

It’s very action packed and fast paced. I wanted to read it in a single sitting because we don’t get a break from almost constant movement and suspense, which is excellent. There’s no great place to put it down unless you’re a person who is like, “Oh, ho-hum, mysterious space deaths.”

The book also ends on a cliffhanger which actually surprised me. If I’d paid attention, I’d have noticed that the book is listed as “Contagion 1” which means it’s part of a series. Usually stories like this involve going on a really poorly thought out mission, finding the monster, killing the monster, and being scared in the process. The end of Contagion took the story in a direction I wasn’t expecting and, frankly, am pretty excited about. It’s a bummer that I’m going to have to wait until next year for the sequel.

So if creepy space shit is your cup of tea, then I’d recommend Contagion. It offers a twist on a genre that’s seen a lot of mileage, and I’m excited for the next installment.