The Vang: A Review

                                                             

Christopher Rowley's The Vang was cited as the inspiration for the Flood in Halo. I was incredibly excited to dig into this one, especially since I really enjoyed the first book in the series, Starhammer.

The Vang follows a wide cast of characters on the planet Saskatch, a remote colony filled with logging communities, drug runners, and a very corrupt capital city. In the local star system is a ship with two families trying to strike a fortune in mining. They discovered a floating alien object and well... that's how the Vang attempts to take over Saskatch. 

The Vang are a parasitic life from introduced at the end of Starhammer. They are sentient beings that can infect and take over other species as hosts. Their appearance mimics very close to how the Flood were eventually created:

Around the corner and into the passage sprang a bipedal being, barely recognizable as human. Sheaths of a shiny pink and gray material coated the arms, the chest, and lower body. The material was heavily ridged and wattled on the chest and torso.

The head was an obscenely distorted version of humanity. Orange flower things waved in front of a face like that of a man mixed with a greyhound. Under the chin hung a beard of pink polyps.

And here is some concept art for Halo of the Flood (human combat form):

Artist: Robert McLees

The book was a pretty fun read, although I wasn't a fan of the head hopping and the character names got confusing at times. For example, there's a scene where there's two characters with the same last name and their dialogue tags made it difficult to distinguish who was who. There was also some other parts that didn't sit with me well (without giving spoilers away, the lobster thing...). I honestly wished this book was longer so certain scenes got more developed. The beginning of the story was the strongest part of the novel and as the story progressed, things felt more rushed.

But, overall, this was a fun classic parasitic alien invasion lifeforms. It's violent, fast paced, and creepy.  This is one I'll definitely return to for inspiration in the future.