Terror World – Cath Lauria

The second novel in Aconyte Books’ Zombicide Invader range (zombies in space!), Cath Lauria’s Terror World offers another fun, horror-tinged slab of sci-fi action which sees a disparate, multi-species team brought together to investigate an ancient distress signal on a remote world. In true SF zombie fashion, when they arrive on Sik-Tar the team discovers an ancient spaceship full of strange mysteries and unanswered questions, which soon turns into a deathtrap when the long-dead bodies of the original crew start coming back to life in horrifying fashion. Before long, what began as a scientific mission becomes a frantic scramble for survival in the face of rampaging alien-mold-monsters (otherwise known as Xenos) and a fracturing team.

If you’ve read Tim Waggoner’s Planet Havoc then you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here – a small group of characters who mostly don’t trust each other, forced to try and work together simply to survive and get off the planet they’re stuck on – although this is a bit less militaristic than Waggoner’s novel. The focus here is more on scientific exploration and inter-species cooperation (or otherwise), with a full third of the main cast thinkers rather than fighters: human scientist Dizzie Drexler and her nervous assistant Corinus (a psychic Centauran), and insectile Caridian historian/explorer Ix-Nix-Six. For Dizzie in particular, the potential risks pale in comparison with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for hands-on fieldwork. There’s still plenty of action of course, particularly where Thassian mercenary Divak is involved, but to begin with at least the emphasis is on exploration and adventure.

The first half or so of the book, in which the team is assembled and the initial explorations take place, arguably provides most of the highlights as the various personalities in the team try to find ways to coexist while blatantly distrusting each other. The two remaining team members, the Bane brothers, consistently steal the show: tough, quick-thinking older brother Grayson and his cyborg sibling Mason, whose detachable limbs each contain their own independent brains (Lucky Lefty, Mason’s left arm, is particularly fun), deserve their own novel they’re such good characters! Inevitably things take a turn for the worse as monsters make their presence known and the fault lines within the team start to really show. Again, like in Waggoner’s book, the Xenos are more aliens than traditional zombies, and while the small cast means there aren’t that many characters for the Xenos to eat…they still prove pretty dangerous.

It’s worth saying that tonally as well, this is less of an outright horror story and much more of a science fiction adventure. There are a few moments of grotesquery with the Xenos, but they’re relatively few and far between, with the darkness coming as much in the shape of suspicions and mistrust brewing within the team as anything violent. There’s no need to know anything about Zombicide in advance, as this gives you everything you need to know in order to enjoy it as a standalone story, although an interesting choice towards the end hints at the larger scope that exists elsewhere in the setting. Look elsewhere, then, if you’re after a really gory zombie novel…but stick with this if you’re looking for something fun and (relatively) light, with a breezy pace and tone and a small cast of really entertaining characters.

Review copy provided by the publisher

See also: all of the Cath Lauria reviews and interviews on Track of Words

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