Bloom: The Invasion

In this first installment of a planned series called “The Invasion”, prolific fantasy/science-fiction writer Kenneth Oppel brings readers a highly charged vision of a future dominated by strange plants that invade the earth overnight. Anaya, Petra, and Seth are 15-year-olds living on BC’s Salt Spring Island when the tall black grasses start to appear across the globe, growing quickly until they overwhelm civilization, threatening to block all food production. The three discover that they are immune to the plants’ toxic effects and that their unusual birth defects have returned. When Anaya’s father, a botanist, discovers that soil on a remote Gulf island might be deadly to the plants, the three accompany Canadian military to the site where they are confronted with even deadlier growths: people-eating underground pods and acidic seed-spitting water lilies. Using the soil discovered by Anaya’s father, they manage to thwart the plants’ attempt to kill them all. The soil is converted into an herbicide and tested in Vancouver’s Stanley Park while the group look on. The experiment is successful, and all are relieved until it starts to rain and a new invasive species falls from the sky, setting the stage for the second book in the trilogy.

As usual, Oppel creates a tightly narrated, fast-paced, yet character-driven drama based on an aspect of natural life that comes to life with his incredible imagination. Character portraits and development provide the backbone—Anaya’s lifetime of disfiguring allergies that leave her bitter over Petra’s natural beauty, Petra’s strange allergy to water that causes her to seek sympathy in order to be popular, Seth’s succession of foster homes culminating in the only one he’s ever fit into, an aging farm couple on the island who have to sell the farm because of the invasion. When the three discover their mutual immunity and that they are somehow being transformed into new hybrid creatures, their insecurities in their old lives collide with their fear and wonder over what may happen next. Learning that they were probably conceived by an alien presence and not their fathers, they seek affirmation of love from the adults in their lives while, at the same time, recognizing that they are now family.

The portrait of the earth caught up in ecological disaster is equally compelling. Governments all over the world are alarmed, information is in short supply, and the three are co-opted by not just the military but also by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The sense of emergency, seen through the experiences on one remote Canadian community and occasionally glanced on a television screen, is palpable. The perspective skillfully switches from scene to scene between all three characters equally, providing a plethora of observations in addition to thoughts and feelings, all adding up to a fascinating drama of a potential future. On occasion, such as when the people-eating pods (“pit plants” as people start to call them) are trying to devour the teens and their classmates, the contrivance threatens to overwhelm the drama, but it always brought back down to what really matters: real people reacting to unreal situations. A thrilling read.