The first book in William Meikle’s S-Squad series, Infestation is a short, snappy creature-feature packed full of action, danger, sweary soldiers and swarms of disgusting (and worryingly large) creepy-crawlies. Captain John Banks and a hand-picked team of soldiers are dispatched to investigate reports of a Russian boat in some kind of trouble in Canadian waters, their mission simply to drop in, find out what’s going on and report back. When they’re greeted by scenes of bloody devastation on arrival, however, it quickly becomes clear that there’s more going on than just a few Russian spies lurking where they shouldn’t be.
Banks and his men aren’t the most developed of characters, as this is only a novella after all (or at least a very short novel) and there’s plenty of deep-sea creature action that needs fitting in, but then that’s not really the point of this sort of story, is it? The six soldiers, all rough-spoken, cigarette-smoking Scots or Irishmen, have an enjoyable sense of camaraderie between them, which is only emphasised when the boat’s sole survivor – the boat’s Russian chief scientist Rika Svetlanova – is added into the mix. Their dialogue is sharp, full of character and deadpan humour, and makes for an engaging and easy read right from the off.
Most readers won’t come to this looking for deep and thoughtful characterisation though. The main draw is always going to be the creatures, and Meikle populates this story with brilliantly disgusting giant isopods, which are as nasty (or fascinating, depending on your perspective) as you’d expect. More than that though, they’re satisfyingly believable – it feels as though they could genuinely exist somewhere, and you really wouldn’t want to meet one in the flesh! Banks and co. are up to the task of course, but these isopods cause them considerable difficulty and make for compelling, force-of-nature enemies.
This is unashamed, unpretentious, no-nonsense pulp fiction; pacy, tense and action-packed with the focus on hard but likeable men (and women…or at least one woman) duking it out with gross, deadly creatures which have somehow crawled up from deep below the sea. If that’s not your thing, this probably won’t be for you, but if you like your beasties big, ugly and in terrifyingly large numbers, and your protagonists straight-talking and practical, then chances are you’ll have a lot of fun with Infestation. It might just be a little while before you can look at seafood in the same light again.
