The Impact Review - Conquest

Conquest (Chronicles of the Invaders 1)

Written by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard

Published by Headline Books

Available now in Hardback, paperback due in April.

Earth is under the control of an alien species. The Illyri, a physically beautiful but dictatorial extra-terrestrial culture, chose our planet, oddly enough, because the two species are quite similar. This fact, however, does not mean that the two groups treat each other as equals. Syl Hellais, the first Illyri conceived in space and born on earth is the daughter of a powerful leader who controls a stronghold in Scotland.

On her sixteenth birthday she and her best friend Ani sneak out of the compound and into the streets of Scotland, wearing disguises that allow them to pass for human. They meet two teenage brothers who unexpectedly save their lives. Within a very short period of time, Syl becomes a traitor to her own race and under the protection of the Resistance, humans set on regaining the planet.

The Chronicles of the Invaders series is being marketed as a young adult series, I imagine because the market is currently hot. The book does a have a sort of Romeo and Juliet scenario between the character of Syl and one of the boys in the Resistance, Paul. While forbidden teenage romance is indeed a large part of the book, so is graphic violence, hatred, and betrayal. To me, this almost works as a young adult book, but it is a little more sophisticated, quite a bit longer and a bit more violent than young adult books that I normally review.

My first issue is that the beginning portion of the book - which explains the classes of the Illyri race is quite tedious. I almost gave up after the first forty or so pages, already lost by the introduction of characters and groups of the invaders. The book does get better, but I fear that the first pages may disenfranchise teenage readers due to dryness of the material.

To me, the book just didn’t work. The budding romance didn’t seem to fit with rest of the material. Still, I’ll be happy to read a second book in the series. Sometimes it does takes a second book to understand the direction in which the series will head. Conquest seemed to have too many elements in the plot; the series could go anywhere. Characters were literally being scattered all over the universe at the end.

I would hope that the second book of the series would be a bit more focused, because it could become quite interesting. It just isn’t quite there yet.