Angelus

Stargate Atlantis #11

by Peter J. Evans

When Colonel Ellis encounters an Ancient on the borders of Asuran space, the Atlantis team think their luck has changed. Charming and likable, Angelus connects with each team member in a unique way - more than that, he offers them a weapon that could put an end to their war with both the Wraith and the Asurans. But all is not what it seems, and even Angelus does not know the truth about his identity...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Media Tie In, Ebooks

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 25, 2008

Reviews

[J.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stargate Atlantis is my brain candy of choice, and this book did not disappoint. It made a drastic turn into the horrifying about a third of the way in, and then I couldn't put it down. Evans is very good at the concept of "sometimes not describing something is much scarier than giving the reader a bunch of details."

This takes place during Carter's third week on Atlantis, and does a good job at looking at the pressure she is under compared with before. McKay's character was also brilliantly executed. Unfortunately, Sheppard and Ronon were a bit one-dimensional, but they were also hardly a main focus. (Evans also referred to Ronon as "Dex" in the narration, which was a bit distracting.)

Anyway, I know it's good when it makes me want to go back and watching certain episodes.

(I couldn't give it 5 stars because there were a *lot* of typos/skipped words. Bad editor, no cookie.)

[Tagcaver · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is in the Horror genre more than in the science fiction genre. And a horror it was to read it.

Where to start. First with at least 11 editing fails, it was distracting to read. Check my highlights and notes to see them.

Second, it seemed that many characters were out of character somewhat. Why did they not scan Rodney for nanites? I would think that after being "bitten" by the thing on chunkey monkey they would have scanned not only Rodney, but the entire team.

Third, why trust Angelus to let him on Atlantis? That is so wrong. Especially how letting ancients on the city not only went badly the last time, they almost lost it all together when the replicators killed off the ancients and took over. If in character, Carter, Shepard, and the others would have isolated him on another planet somewhere, not give him free rein of the city. Sheesh, so stupid!

Fourth, it seemed that they did a bit of overkill when Angelus was consuming the city. It was a little bit too much widespread damage.

Fifth, the ending was a little bit too easy. Just throw some of Shepard's blood on it, essentially? It's like the author spent all his writing energy on finding more ways to spread horror and then at the last minute decided to solve the problem with a simple fix. It just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story.

This is the most I've disliked a book in a long time. It was not fun to read it.

Skip this one if you can.

[Stephanie Jo Hanauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of the series, but this was not my favorite. Let me say that this author isn't a regular and his style was a bit choppy. There were areas where certain main characters/events weren't mentioned for several pages/chapters. This CAN happen in the books, but usually there is a good reason that benefits the story. Now, I admit the story was MUCH better AND interesting on the back half. So, it was worth it in the end. Not giving away any spoilers, A LOT happened to our fair Atlantis and its residents in this book which made it difficult to believe the events could be "slotted" in to the show sequence. Other books overcome this by having huge events, damage, etc. happen off-world and not directly to Atlantis. ALL IN ALL, love the series so didn't want to miss out on this one. LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angelus is a good sci-fi horror story. The creepy atmosphere kept me turning pages. I thought there were a few questionable characterizations at the beginning, but as the story went on it was clear these were intentional and hinted at something sinister unfolding. Some scenes were a little too gory for my taste.

I would have given the book four stars, except for some bizarre terminology used throughout the book. In the Stargate universe, I've never heard the term "command throne" (commander's chair), "Stargate matrix" (Stargate network), "jump solution" (coordinates), "break out of hyperspace" (drop out), etc. How exactly do "local allies" change when they all have Stargates? Since when do puddlejumpers run out of power? All of this feels like they hired a writer who is familiar with the genre, but not the show. It took me out of the story enough to dock a star.

[Ida Leter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice and spooky and creepy story, and for about a half of it I was on the edge of my seat. Then it unravelled in a weird way. If it could maintain the horror aspect of it to the very end it would have been great, but it just became hollow, following a weird scene jump.

Plus, there was one thing that did bother me from the beginning. If someone shows up and you don't know whether you can trust them or not, and they offer you to teach you how to make a doomsday device, and ZPMs that are required to power up the said doomsday device, why wouldn't you start with hearing how to produce ZPMs?

[Ana Gutierrez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite of the Stargate Atlantis novels.

Don't get me wrong the story it self is good but it would have been great as a stand alone original work rather than it trying to fit itself into the SGA universe.

The characters were just slightly out of character enough to ruin the flow for me. I can expect and excuse a certain amount of OC-ness in fanfiction but with a canon publication I'm a little less forgiving.

[Pat Hauldren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot twists and Asuran leftovers

I gave 4 stars because this story in particular was an involved one. An interesting and different sort of Atlantis story in that we didn't really get into the characters quite as much in spite of its length. The story used the Asurans as a base and presented an interesting alien/antagonist, although some early plot twists got purposefully passed over and were a bit obvious, still worth the read.

[Linda Kaban · Rating 3 out of 5]

More horror than sci-fi. Not my favourite genre. Rodney, Zalenka and Sheppard had some great moments. Ronan had a great scene in the infirmary. Didn't particularly like the portrayal of Sam Carter. Not the Sam we know and love. My favourite scene was right at the end when Colonel Ellis and Oberoth met, fired on the planet that started the whole horror and then turned and flew away agreeably.

[Uly Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome thrilling

Ok I like said in other books in other trilogy it a be read for every one who loves soy-fi and stargate I would recommend to everyone who love action and adventure and science fiction

[Beenee Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly horrifying to read but a great read! The descriptions are probably going to give me nightmares but I don’t regret a thing!!

[Graisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an odd one; a horror story on Atlantis. Entertaining. The weirdest thing was how the author kept referring to Ronan as Dex. No one calls him by his last name.

[Scott Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the better ones in this series

[Shadowsword · Rating 2 out of 5]

horror parts were good, ending too fast, beginning too long.
cover should show Carter and Ellis. not much sga-1 in it.

[T. S. Larsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from the legacy series, I think this is my favourite SGA novel. All the Characters felt right, and the story was exciting. I find sometimes it's hard to get into the stories, since you know that everything will end at status quo because they can't mess up the established timeline of the show. This was the reason I really enjoyed the Legacy series.

This book spends a lot of time in minor characters heads, rather than in the main casts heads, I have seen some reviews that site that as their main turn off, but I found it quite refreshing after having read 20 odd SGA novels. and to be fair we did spend some time in the main teams heads. It was definitely interesting to be in Colonel Ellis's head, he was such a small character in the show, but in this story it worked well having him as a viewpoint character.

I am giving this one 4 stars as I really enjoyed the story line, it was new and exciting and not something we have seen over and over again, and of course I got my SGA fix.

[Kati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost four stars but not really, though I will bump it up to four. It was definitely better than Swallow's "Nightfall" - it ran more smoothly, there was a very logical process in going from point A to point B, the characters were rather true to themselves and the idea itself was awesome (horror and scifi in one). Also, I love stories that take place in Atlantis because the show itself took precious little time to explore the city which was a shame. And then there was the Apollo and it was nice to see its crew in action, again something that we didn't really see on the show.

But there were two things that quite didn't click for me:
a) All the technical jargon. Sometimes dumbing it down serves the story better. Some parts were a bit hard to follow for someone without a background in physics.
b) Sam Carter was without any doubt the main character of the whole story. John and Rodney were reduced to supporting characters, Teyla had one big scene and Ronon was background material (even the author's original characters had bigger parts). I missed the team terribly, the interaction between the main four: John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon.

To sum it up, a very good, action-filled tie-in. But I miss the female touch of the previous books, the focus on the relationships between the characters.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Colonel Ellis rescues a small ship fleeing from the replicators. The lone passenger claims to be an ancient wanting to return to Atlantis. He promises to give them a weapon that will end the war with the replicators and the wraith. But when something sounds to good to be true it usually is. [return][return]I have read all of the Stargate Atlantis tie-ins. This one was one of the worst. The story is told mostly from the perspective of Samantha Carter and Colonel Ellis. McKay has a small role, but Shepherd and the rest of the team hardly make an appearance until the final chapters. There were none of the witty character interactions that I associate with Stargate. And the plot was not very sci-fi, it read much more like a horror novel, complete with mutations, and oozing fluids. [return][return]There were lots of gaps and unexplained pieces in the plot like the golden mask, the sensor noise, and more. A minor irritant to me was that apparently this story happened before the other tie-in Nightfall even though Nightfall is numbered 10 and this book is numbered 11. If you are trying to read all the movie tie-ins be prepared for a tough read. If you just want an SGA fix, I would skip this one.

[AnnaM · Rating 3 out of 5]

A horror story--creepy and gross. This featured two SG1 characters, Sam Carter and Col. Ellis, but had a lot of SGA characters with small parts. The plot and bad guys were good. The writing was vivid. The twists were good. The story was interesting and kept me reading quickly.

The big problem was the SGA characters niether sounded nor acted like themselves. It was the little things. Calling people by their first name when they almost never did on the show. Speech patterns or actions that didn't fit the SGA characters. It just wasn't...right. Only Teyla came close. Even the banter between Rodney and Sam wasn't right. Definitely not like watching an episode. I think the book would fit best with fans who equally adore both SG1 and SGA or just like a good horror story.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though the plot was decent, I found the characters' voices to be so far off I had difficulty recognizing them and actually had to go back to double-check who was speaking on more than one occasion. Zelenka's dialog was definitely the worst--it had me questioning if the author had ever even watched the series at times. (He had Zelenka using far too many contractions and his speech pattern was WAY off, in my opinion.) While I loved that more secondary characters were featured in the book, I hated that they were so poorly written, for the most part. Even the main characters didn't ring true for me at times. This was definitely not one of the better books in the series.

[Cash'Lion Elud'Ox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool! Very adventurous! It did have some sense of watching movie techno-anime of blob monsters and over done creature, but for who wrote the book, its just a subtle signature of his anyway. There is hints of Terminator, King Kong, and White Noise scenarios. Again its worth the reading. Definite 4 1/2 stars but I could do that. so I just kept it at 4 even.

I do recommend it to Stargate Atlantis lovers out there or even to sci-fi lovers in general. I do wish it had little more tie-in to the shows. Where I can go back and forth on the episodes this book falls in between in and here and see the relativity to the book. But if this book was a movie...wow!

[Shendara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of the book reminded me of a Star Trek: Voyager episode - lots and lots of technobabble. The plot itself is very good and - apart from the babble - well written. But the characters! I just couldn't recognize the characters I know and love from the show. Their speech-patterns just didn't fit.

Cool plot but not for a Stargate book. At least not in the way it is presented here. (Although the chapters aboard the Apollo were good. Ellis' and his crew behavior are just not as well known and so it doesn't matter how they act/speak.)

[I. S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat creepier than most SGA books. I enjoyed it, but definitely thought there were some elements of John Carpenter's The Thing tied into the storyline. Adding a character named MacReady definitely makes me wonder if that were intentional.

There were also a few major typos that threw me out of the story at times, because the editor in my head would stop to correct the grammar or wonder how the heck it got through the editor like that. Typos in professionally published works depress me.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Apollo finds an unusual spaceship with an inhabitant that claims to be an Ancient. Things get very complicated and go wrong. The good point with this book is the use of the Apollo and its crew, like a breath of fresh air. The storyline does go quite horrific quite quickly and if you're a bit squeamish do not read this. Again the cover does not really depict the content, this is mainly about Ellis, McKay and Zelenka. A good read.

[Miss Clark · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was very difficult to follow the plot, almost jittery like an unfocused camera. The characters, based on those from the tv series, were very poorly portrayed, with no discernible character development and little interaction to justify the novel's use of them.

I'd recommend Reliquary by Martha Wells if you are looking for a better book based off of the SGA series.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me this worked as both a tie in to one of my favourite tv series and a decent stand alone sic fi novel. It's the first SGA novel I have read and I will be reading more based on how much I enjoyed this one.

[Colleen Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the $7.95 they're charging, you'd think at least the author's mother would bother to read it and find the typos and misspellings before they published. Apparently not. Thank god for paperbackswap.
Stop me before I read again!

[Luci Ann Keenagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a little while to get going, I thought but once the action kicked in I was hooked! Great characterisations, all true to form and plenty of action. Woulda liked to have heard more from major Lorne, who only popped up once or twice but I enjoyed it very much!

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough, but definitely not one of my favourites among the SGA novels - I've never been a big fan of the whole replicator storyline, the characters didn't really sound like themselves and I got somewhat bored with the part of the plot taking place on the Apollo.

[Sally · Rating 2 out of 5]

Characterization was off. For example, Ronon constantly called Shep by his first name and I'm certain that wasn't the case in the show. Also, I didn't understand the technical stuff at all.

[Alyce Caswell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was overwritten to the point of being boring - and it also made everyone feel/sound very OOC.