Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Peter David
Del Rey, Apr 24 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780345535375

In 2006 in Honolulu Alex and Stone Hopper are having drinks when a beautiful woman asks the bartender for a chicken fajita; he says the kitchen is closed. Hopper, as Alex is called, races to a convenience store as the owner locks up and refuses his money. Undisturbed he breaks in and delivers the woman a fajita only to have the cops arrest him. Stone uses his influence as a naval officer to get him out of trouble. Stone tells him the woman Sam Shane is the daughter of the Rear Admiral; if he wants her he needs to clean up his act. Stone joins the navy.

After SETI shuts down, in Tibet, Dr. Andrew Nogrady becomes the head of Beacon International Project. His team sends signals into space seeking alien contact.

Five years later, Sam encourages Hopper to ask her father for permission to marry her. When he gets into trouble with a Japanese sailor, Shane informs him he will be court martialed after the military games are completed. The games end when disaster strikes around the globe and a strange vessel shows up in the zone. Nogrady realizes he got what he wished for; an armada answered his signals with efficient force.

Based on the upcoming movie’s screenplay (by Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber), Peter David provides an exciting military science fiction thriller. The first few chapters establish the always in troublesome hero, whose propensity for causing disturbances helps him later on when facing an enemy more powerful, faster and impossible to see (radar down). However the invasion that readers anticipate arrives 25% into the entertaining storyline. Still this is a fun thriller as the superior alien armada is conquering the planet.

Harriet Klausner