The Parasite War

by Tim Sullivan

With the world ravaged by Colloids, an alien parasitic life form that feeds on humans, a haunted Vietnam vet and a young woman decide to fight back

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Timothy Robert Sullivan was an American science fiction novelist, screenwriter, actor, film director and short story writer.
Many of his stories have been critically acknowledged and reprinted. His 1981 short story "Zeke," a tragedy about an extraterrestrial stranded on Earth, has been translated into German and was a finalist for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. "Under Glass" (2011), a well-reviewed semi-autobiographical short story with occult hints, has been translated into Chinese and is the basis for a screenplay by director/actor Ron Ford. "Yeshua's Dog" (2013) was also translated into Chinese.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pulp by Sullivan! Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where somethings (parasites) called "Colloids" feed on human flesh/hosts arrived three years ago and now, only the hardiest and maddest survive. The colliods take various forms, infecting humans like a virus and then growing to consume their host; these then exist as blob-like creatures who continue to feed on humans. They also can partially mingle with their human hosts, making them like zombies.

Our main protagonist, Alex, a Vietnam vet, survives in the sewers of Philly, as the colliods cannot abide water (it dissolves them), along with other survivors. Alex meets Jo early on and they quickly become lovers and a team. The colliods, however, are not done by a long shot; it seems they are planning something big and Alex and Jo are determined to stop them. They slowly gather a rag-tag bunch of other hardy souls and decide to take the fight to the colliods and purge Earth of the parasites...

There is nothing deep here, but I love a good pulpy read. Sullivan leaks the story of the colliods in orts and scraps as the novel progresses rather than info dumps and this takes a bit to discern what the hell is going on. One fun thing is that the colliods seem to have a hard time 'assimilating' people who are mentally unbalanced so the survivors are all kinds of crazy. Can the crazies, armed with flamethrowers, napalm and guns turn the tide and save humanity? Read it to find out. 3.5 parasites, rounded up!!

[Trilobyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

The survivors of an invasion by parasitic aliens skulk in the sewers and ruins of Philadelphia. A Vietnam veteran organises the few remaining humans to fight back against the colloids. An enjoyable read.

[Joshua Hair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even at civilization’s end, society’s rejects were still shunned – by organisms from outer space(!)

The apocalypse-inducing invaders in Tim Sullivan’s The Parasite War are extraterrestrial, flesh-devouring amoebas … which for a good chunk of this paperback sci-fi novel work rather well as villains. The jellies, dubbed ‘colloids’ by the surviving humans, slither through a war-blasted earth, hunting humans which they either devour in grisly fashion, sucking flesh from bone in a globular food fest, or see the blobs slipping inside the body, puppeteering the dead humans as zombified foot soldiers.

Overall, I enjoyed the end-of-the world scenario Sullivan built as his main character Alex explores the streets, parks, and sewers of a monster-infested, near-abandoned Philadelphia. The colloids’ predilection for human hosts and meat is suitably disturbing (Alex stumbling on a half-eaten survivor inside the city hall is particularly morbid) with plenty of old skool zombie smashing as the colloid host shambles walking dead-style to oppose Alex and his band of guerilla fighters.

The conceit, though, only goes so far as by mid-point in the book, Sullivan piles on the extra weird, evolving his colloids into body-snatchers and imbuing his key characters with a plot-pushing form of telepathy (that creepily can only initially be accessed at the point of mutual orgasm). The final trek to stomp out the colloids’ breeding ground -- where the aliens are found to weaving themselves into an uber human/colloid hybrid -- reads like the climax to a Resident Evil rip-off video game with a host of core characters summarily slain and the colloid ‘neonate’ standing in for ‘nemesis.’

Though I scored the paperback version of this book, The Parasite War can also be found on Kindle. It’s not a bad read (and there’s extra credit for the originality of the antagonists), but it doesn’t quite crawl its way up to notable either.

[Solim · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an effing ride! Pace, action and the alien invasion itself was great! One major issue is how they figured out what the alien’s purpose was. Probably the only dumb thing about this book. Aside that, very well done alien invasion.