Hive by Jeremiah Ukponrefe
Alex King works for the Collective, an organization dedicated to protecting civilians from an alien entity known as the Hive. In this post-apocalyptic world, different factions abound, scattered throughout the planet and all at threat from the Hive. Alex and his comrades journey to gain allies in their fight, and along the way learn shocking secrets about their world’s history.
Genres
Military science fiction
Description
The Collective military has spent its years destroying the last remnants of The Hive, an alien force that devastated the old world. bringing forth the apocalypse, and ushering a new age of warring factions.
Alexander King is a Collective soldier who during a mission monitoring the outskirts of Zone 6, discovers evidence that the Hives presence is stronger then commonly believed. With his new information it becomes vital that The Collective acts fast, for if they dont the world will be brought to its knees again in a wave of destruction that will end humanity forever.
Review
I really liked the premise of Hive. Hive minds are really interesting to me and I love to see them. The Hive made me think of the Borg from Star Trek, one of my favorite Star Trek villains.
The premise was great, but I struggled to clearly understand what was going on in the story. This was mostly in the first half. While it’s good to avoid excessive exposition, there is little to no information about the world before the reader is thrown into it. Unfamiliar terms are dropped and not explained, and I was expected to understand and care about the group’s quest when I didn’t really comprehend their goal or their world. Around halfway through I started to gain a better understanding, and this is when I started to enjoy the story more. The premise and world is cool, but there needs to be more explanation because I was very confused for much of it.
The book also needs proofreading. While the actual sentences have good structure, there were an excessive number of typos, which kept pulling me out of the story. Even having a non-professional look over it would help catch many of these typos, which would greatly improve the reading experience.
Overall, while I loved the ideas in this story and I feel it could be turned into something really interesting, it reads more like a rough draft than a finished product. Proofreading, explanations of the world, and more time to let character development take place would help polish it. I’m interested to see how the author develops.