Pandemic Review

     Awhile ago I read Scott Sigler's first Galactic Football League novel, The Rookie. I didn't really like it despite enjoying a lot of its concepts and some of its action. But when I mentioned it to a friend, she stated that Scott Sigler's other books are amazing and that I should try them. I started off on the Infected trilogy. Pandemic is the 3rd book in that series. And what a series it is.
Small spoilers for Infected, Contagious, and Ancestor are contained in this review!

     Infected and Contagious both flirt with perfect scores from me (if I were to review them, which I probably won't since I read them awhile ago). Infected introduced me to Sigler's vulgar and horrifying style. It mainly focused on one man's experience with his alien infection. He slowly goes crazy, and slowly mutilates his body to fight the infection. The final scenes are telegraphed a mile away in a great use of foreshadowing. Foreshadowing something un-thinkable is a great technique. We also got a peak as to what the purpose of the alien virus is. And that revelation itself, although a small part of the book, is fascinating.
     Contagious sees the main characters from the first book combating a new strain of the infection and some of the intelligences behind it; a brilliant and awesome orbiting artificial intelligence and the high-jacked brain of a little girl. The book continues the brutal style of the first with many amazing moments and a crazy climax.
     Unfortunately Pandemic is the worst book in the series by a long-shot. Don't worry, it's still entertaining and a decent read, and it has a lot of the elements that made the other books great. But it's missing some of the magic.
     First off, it is pretty slow moving. It's about the alien virus going worldwide and pushing the human race to the brink of extinction. But the spread of the disease doesn't begin for a looong time in the book. I want to say it takes like half the book for things to really get going. Slower paced stories are fine, and I'm into them when they are appropriate. But this story could use a much faster pace. Instead Margaret Montoya and Clarence Otto spend a really long time on a boat studying the new strains of virus, along with Tim Feely, a character who returns from Sigler's stand-alone novel Ancestor. Crossovers like this sometimes seemed forced to me, but Feely fits right in as a character, thanks in-part to the way the island in Ancestor figures into the setting in Pandemic. In fact Feely becomes a main character that fits right in with Montoya and Otto.
     Once things do go wrong, in true Sigler style, they go really wrong. Montoya and the crew race down multiple paths for a cure to the infection. Of course, anyone can join the cause of the infection at any time if they become infected...
     Pandemic doesn't quite take things far enough though. The few people that do change sides don't really do much. There could have been some amazing moments featuring the traitorous actions of certain people, especially since Sigler has the guts to have anyone go turncoat at any minute. But these opportunities are mostly wasted.
     The final scenes are really cool, but don't hold a candle to a typical Sigler ending. The ending of Infected and the Ending of Contagious are both so outrageous and awesome. This one seems tame by comparison (although it's somewhat outrageous by normal author standards).
     It's true that there are a lot of cool characters and interesting ideas; deep sleeper agent Steve Stanton is very cool, as is the way his automated submarine functions and completes its mission. And the Navy Seal Klimas is a cool character. But something felt off. The magic of the first two books is missing. And there is a plot hole that's not so great. And a few of the concepts that the book slowly works you up to turn out to be a dud in my book.
     Compared to the first two books in the series, Pandemic is way too slow in the beginning and then never achieves the levels of insanity that the other books do. I had a prediction of what I thought might happen, and it would have been really over-the-top. What happened instead was tame by comparison. Sitting here, I can thinks of a few scenarios right away that would have made better endings or climaxes.
     I'm being pretty vague about everything as usual to avoid spoiling anything for new readers. Just so you know...
    Pandemic is an interesting read with a couple of good parts, but none of the building tension and stunning endings that the series is famous for. Unfortunately I have to give it a low score. The series still scores very highly for me. The first two books are some of the best I've read in a few years, and like I said, they may even be perfect scores. If only the finale to the series could have topped them both.... Instead, Pandemic is a Mediocre Book, tier 2.