Welcome to my stop on Angry Robot Books' blog tour for Symbiote by Michael Nayak! I'm excited to join my fellow book lovers in sharing some information about Symbiote, as well as my own review for this claustrophobic thriller set at the South Pole. Thank you to Angry Robot Books for inviting me to join this tour and providing me with a review copy of Symbiote. Above you can find the full blog tour schedule and where to find other creators who are participating, and below you'll find some info about the book and author, as well as my review. Happy reading!
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Title: SYMBIOTE
Author: Michael Nayak
Pub. Date: February 11th, 2025
Publisher: Angry Robot Books
Pages: 400
Find it: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Angry Robot Books | Target | Goodreads
Within seventy-two hours, thirteen more lie dead in the snow, murdered in acts of madness and superhuman strength.
An extremophile parasite from the truck, triggered by severe cold, is spreading by touch. It is learning from them. Evolving. It triggers violent tendencies in the winter crew, and, more insidiously, the beginnings of a strange symbiotic telepathy.
A small group of survivors try to resist the siren call of the growing hive mind and stay alive long enough to solve the mystery of the symbiotic microbe’s origins. But the symbiote is more than a disease – it could be the key to shifting the balance of power in a time of war.
The survivors cannot let anyone infected make it to the summer season, when planes will arrive to take them – and potentially the symbiote – back to civilization."
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Review:
Symbiote has a pretty terrifying premise: World War III is underway and Americans working at an isolated Antarctic station are suddenly under threat of an unknown contagion that has begun sweeping through the station--and there's nowhere to hide.
I love an isolated, locked-room type of story, and Symbiote absolutely delivers on that front. Our story kicks off when a group of Chinese scientists show up unannounced at the American station with a dead body in tow and are unable to adequately explain what has happened. The South Pole's jurisdiction on these matters is unclear during this world war, which leaves everyone in a precarious situation--especially when not even days later more people begin dying at the hands of those who appear to have gone mad with no explanation. Symbiote novel excels in building a sense of isolation and anxiety with its slow, creeping dread that constantly increases the tension. This is a story that I would have expected to be (and maybe preferred) a quieter, slow build sort of story, but it's actually surprisingly action-packed and there are rarely any dull moments. This relentless feeling of action certainly mirrored what I'm sure many of the characters were feeling while these terrifying events were occurring.
Despite the fact that I enjoyed myself for a majority of this novel, it wasn't without a few areas that didn't work for me. Some of my biggest frustrations, however, were with the characters themselves. As the story progressed, some characters made some truly absurd decisions, and while I understand that people panic in emergencies and aren't always able to think clearly, the sheer number of reckless choices felt excessive. There was also a surprisingly large cast of characters that we follow throughout and that made it difficult to become fully invested in anyone's survival, which for me did lessen some of the tension and emotional impact of what each one's fate would be. Some of their reactions to events of this book also felt a bit overdramatized at times, but I'll admit that it's hard to really know how anyone would behave in such an extreme situation, so this was more understandable.
Additionally, the way female characters were handled didn’t really work for me. There was a strong sexual overtone surrounding almost every woman in this book and it ended up feeling a bit overdone and left me a little disappointed. I'm not sure if this was done with the intention of critiquing the way women are often objectified under patriarchal setups and male-dominated areas, but if so I think could have been executed in a much more effective way that felt a bit less awkward and out of place. It felt like so much of the focus of this book was on the relationships and who was sleeping with whom, and while I can see where relationships play into a tense situation like this, it just focused too much on that and not as much on other relationship dynamics that could have been more interesting.
Overall, this was a fast-paced, action-packed, and terrifying thriller that is sure to get you wondering about what might happen if a contagion such as the one in this book actually occurred in real life. It didn't end being as serious in tone as I'd expected, but I think it worked incredibly well as a page-turning thriller that will surely keep readers engaged .
If you’re looking for a high-energy thriller with a claustrophobic setting and plenty of action, then Symbiote should be next on your TBR!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the publisher):
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Find Michael Nayak online: Author Website | X | Goodreads