0.4 by Mike A. Lancaster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Kyle Straker is a teenager in an English village in Cambridgeshire, or rather was. The story of this novel is related as if being played back from tapes made by Kyle some time earlier (our present day). Kyle relates being at a village event (a talent quest) when as the result of being hypnotised he and three other people escaped being somehow transformed by an alien invasion. The framing of the narrative is as if by someone in the future who awkwardly explains some 21st century allusions (some very British) and comments on the nature of the tape format and the book format in which the whole narrative is presented in.
The story is quite good and has some exciting episodes which make one continue reading but the framing sits awkwardly, the whole tape scenario is totally unbelievable, and the asides which interrupt the narrative and seem at least partly intended to add humour are often laboured. Good concept let down by execution.