Scorpio

Scorpio is a 2024 science fiction novel by Marko Kloos. It was published by 47North and released in January 2024. The novel is the first entry in the Frontlines: Evolution series.

It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer. But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans. With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will—and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.

The plot of this novel has its highs and lows. It starts out very compelling, with plenty of action, excitement and tension as the colony’s struggle with the Lankies intensifies and the human’s survival is further threatened. This part of the book is engaging, the story feels impactful and it’s easy to become invested. The second half of the book is neither exciting nor engaging as the colonists return to Earth and the narrative focuses on Alex’s struggle to “fit in” on Earth, a planet she has not lived on since she was a toddler. It’s a hard pivot between the two parts of the book, and the plot as a whole feels disjointed. The second half of the book doesn’t explore the trauma Alex, or the other colonists, need to recover from or dive into the alienation they may feel. Questions posed by the first half of the story aren’t answered in the second half. As I read, I found myself waiting for a plot twist, some revelation that re-framed the events on Scorpio, to happen, but nothing of the nature happened. As a result, the true climax of the story happens before the halfway point, the ending feels drawn out and the story reads like two separate stories, combined into one, rather than one cohesive narrative.

Alex begins the novel as a very compelling character. She’s an orphan, raised in a society with few resources and the looming threat of the Lankies, not to mention the hostile environment of the planet. In the first part of the novel, these factors make her character incredibly interesting as the reader sees her fight for her life, show off her intelligence and wrestle with the chance of dying at a young age. She is shown to have complex feeling about life on Scorpio, the legacy of her parents, and the sense that everyone has been forgotten by Earth. As the story transitions into the second half of the book, she becomes a much more passive character. She stops being active in her own story, and becomes the character events happen to or around. As Alex is adjusting to life on Earth, the reader doesn’t see her dealing with trauma, beyond surface-level things, or grow in a meaningful way. The same can be said for several other characters, including Alex’s best friend Val and friend/love interest Private Lopez. They seem complex and compelling at the start of the story, and could be fantastic characters, but the second half of the book wastes some of that potential. By the end of the book, the one character who felt consistently written, and I enjoyed throughout, was Ash, the military dog Alex had been working with.

I thought the writing in this book was fine. As with the plot and characters, it suffers from the same “this feels like two different books” problem. Because of the strange disconnect between the first and second halves of the story, the pacing of the novel as a whole feels off. The author did an excellent job capturing the tense and action-packed atmosphere of the skirmishes with the Lankies. It was easy to become immersed in that part of the story and those scenes. Later in the book, it was hard to stay invested. Alex’s struggle of what to do once she arrived on Earth didn’t come across as her feeling alienated or adrift on a new planet, but instead like a person too unmotivated to make a decision.

I enjoyed the sci-fi elements of this book. The narrative doesn’t delve too deeply into things like space travel or futuristic technology, but I still found it interesting. The way the Lankies were described was incredibly interesting and made the struggle the colonists were facing feel different from other stories of this type. The Lankies feel more like animals following their instincts rather than an intelligent species, wanting to claim planets for themselves, and that frames their “war” with humanity in an interesting light. There isn’t a ton of world-building done on the whole, but it’s also not needed for an action-focused story like this one.

Scorpio is a book that I find myself struggling to succinctly review and give a rating to. I would give the first half of the book a higher rating than the second half. The blurb promises a lot of creative ideas. The first half of the book has a thrilling plot, which feels disconnected from the second half of the story, which is much slower. The characters are intriguing at the beginning of the story, but lose some of their complexity as the story goes on. On the whole, it feels like two books, each telling a distinct story, in the same binding, rather than one fluid narrative. It was entertaining and it was an easy read, but its disjointed nature was disappointing.

Rating: 2.75 Stars

Purchase Links for the book: Amazon / Bookshop.org

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