Book Review: Salvaged by Madeleine Roux

Salvaged by Madeleine Roux

Paperback, 352 pages

Published October 15th 2019 by Ace

This was an interesting read. I just picked it up when I saw it on the library's new releases and recognized the author from Twitter. So you see social media does pay off sometimes. I didn't read the many, many blurbs and I am kinda glad I went that way. In fact, I went into this novel totally cold not knowing a single thing about the plot just knowing it was science fiction from the super cool looking cover. Had I read multiple blurbs that all compared to ALIEN I might have spent the whole time waiting for the monster to show up. I think I benefitted from not having an idea of what the plot or comparisons were. That said I can't review this without crossing that line for you.

The opening pages drip with gruesome details and the writing is pretty great. The prose is not overly pretty but I enjoyed the fact that Roux is a simple but confident storyteller. We are pushed into this world and have to hold on for most of the experience. The characters are well developed but Roux gives lots of attention and detail to our main point of view character Roselyn. That said the narrative is a third person and we get many points of view. I think this effective and used for moments of suspense and character.

So Roslyn is a deep space salvager and that gives the book it's space truckers feel. She is sent to clean up ships that lost all the crew. She is a drunk and fuck-up with a very interesting past I won't spoil. She is close to losing her job when she has given one last chance a salvage gig with a partner no one can stand. Once they arrive at the ship they find the crew is not dead - not yet however they have come under the control of a sentient parasite.

The comparison to ALIEN is setting pure and simple. While ALIEN has psychological fear involved most of it comes from the characters being hunted. The thing that separates Salvaged is the paranoia at the heart of the story, in that sense this novel is almost more in the neighborhood of John Carpenter's The Thing. As a Phil K Dickian nerd I enjoyed that this novel puts the characters through their worst fears guided by the ones they most love. As a horror concept that is great.

I didn't find the story or the concept to be very groundbreaking and I felt like I had seen this story before. That said it was very well told even if the concept didn't totally hook me. I did, however, enjoy the writing enough to want to read more from the author. I enjoyed the book enough to give it a positive rating and most importantly I had fun reading it. Madeleine Roux is clearly talented and I will be reading more of her work.

Salvaged is highly recommended for those looking for deep-space horror you can't go wrong with this novel that is less cosmic than ALIEN but far more psychological.