A guard discovers an unusual lifeform on her remote moon outpost. She disregards protocol to investigate it, with catastrophic consequences.
The parasitic alien wears its victims’ skins and adopts their personalities. It’s a perfect disguise, and allows the creature to spread without being detected. By the time humanity realises it’s facing extinction, a third of its six hundred space stations have already gone dark.
As the alien’s ruthless progress collapses communication networks, wipes out defences, and leaves hundreds of stations to fend for themselves, a handful of remarkable individuals must find a way to battle the greatest threat the universe has ever encountered.
Parasite by Darcy Coates. # 1-5 of the Cymic Parasite Breach. Published by Poisoned Pen Press, August 2020. Total of 422 pages. Originally published in 2016.
I am a huge fan of Darcy Coates! I am slowly working my way through all of her books. This will be my first time reading something from her that isn’t a gothic ghost or creature story. 😮
Parasite is her first, and only (as of 2022), sci-fi horror story. Honestly, that’s just a shame! She clearly knows what she is doing in this genre. This was such an entertaining and creepy story. The aliens are just NASTY! I loved every minute of it.
It was a little odd at first, getting use to how the book is put together. It is actually 5 novellas in a series. Each novella is a seperate space station, with separate sets of characters dealing with the aliens. So it was a little strange just getting snippits of the attack / fight from all these different groups of people. After a few chapters, though, I got pretty used to changing between all the space station’s characters. It was fine. It was fun.
This book was a little long, but the pacing flowed really well. Loved the way the aliens looked. Yuck! Very nice, very evil. I have no idea how humanity is going to overcome these slimy creatures! I’d love to see a follow up of that one day. 😀 Parasite is such an entertaining ride. I thought the author nailed it with the creepy space horror. I really hope this isn’t her only foray into this sub-genre.
Creature From The Book Lagoon 
Reblogged this on Buried Under Books and commented:
I haven’t read a good oldfashioned creepy bodysnatcher book in quite a while but Ami’s review has convinced me it’s high time and this is the right book 😉.